Tomato plants can be toxic to dogs if they eat large amounts of the fruit, or chew plant material.[56]
Salmonella


A sign posted at a Havelock, North Carolina Burger King tells customers that no tomatoes are available due to the salmonellosis outbreak.
On 30 October 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced tomatoes might have been the source of a salmonellosis outbreak causing 172 illnesses in 18 states.[57] Tomatoes have been linked to seven salmonella outbreaks since 1990.[58]
The 2008 United States salmonellosis outbreak caused the removal of tomatoes from stores and restaurants across the United States and parts of Canada,[59] although other foods, including jalapeño and serrano peppers, may have been involved.
Botanical description



Tomato flower
Tomato plants are vines, initially decumbent, typically growing six feet or more above the ground if supported, although erect bush varieties have been bred, generally three feet tall or shorter. Indeterminate types are "tender" perennials, dying annually in temperate climates (they are originally native to tropical highlands), although they can live up to three years in a greenhouse in some cases. Determinate types are annual in all climates.
Tomato plants are dicots, and grow as a series of branching stems, with a terminal bud at the tip that does the actual growing. When that tip eventually stops growing, whether because of pruning or flowering, lateral buds take over and grow into other, fully functional, vines.[60]
Tomato vines are typically pubescent, meaning covered with fine short hairs. These hairs facilitate the vining process, turning into roots wherever the plant is in contact with the ground and moisture, especially if the vine's connection to its original root has been damaged or severed.
Most tomato plants have compound leaves, and are called regular leaf (RL) plants, but some cultivars have simple leaves known as potato leaf (PL) style because of their resemblance to that particular relative. Of RL plants, there are variations, such as rugose leaves, which are deeply grooved, and variegated, angora leaves, which have additional colors where a genetic mutation causes chlorophyll to be excluded from some portions of the leaves.[61]
The leaves are 10–25 cm (4–10 in) long, odd pinnate, with five to 9 leaflets on petioles,[62] each leaflet up to 8 cm (3 in) long, with a serrated margin; both the stem and leaves are densely glandular-hairy.
Their flowers, appearing on the apical meristem, have the anthers fused along the edges, forming a column surrounding the pistil's style. Flowers in domestic cultivars tend to be self-fertilizing. The flowers are 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 in) across, yellow, with five pointed lobes on the corolla; they are borne in a cyme of three to 12 together.
Tomato fruit is classified as a berry. As a true fruit, it develops from the ovary of the plant after fertilization, its flesh comprising the pericarp walls. The fruit cont