Viewing post #301486 by dave

I've wondered that, too, Mary. I googled and all I could really find was this:

http://www.portlandnursery.com...

This photo is from an actual tomato that was brought to our information desk at our Stark street location. We weren‘t sure exactly what to make of it at first, but some research yielded a pretty good idea. It is caused by a mutant recessive gene, generally called CLAUSA. To avoid too much technical jargon, it appears to be a mutation in the fruit that occurs when flower grows indeterminately instead of ending when the ovary is produced. In simple terms, the flower tissues continue to grow past when they are supposed to. It is a disorder but not a disease, and does not spread between plants. For more information about this, you might try an internet search with the keywords tomato, CLAUSA, and mutation, or some similar keywords.