New York Times: Meet Australia’s New Sex-Changing Tomato

The plant now know as Solanum plastisexum has puzzled scientists for decades. Photo: Angela McDonnell

“MELBOURNE, Australia — In the monsoon tropics of northern Australia, a little plant with prickles, gray-green leaves and purple flowers sprouted. It did not have a name, and it confounded scientists: Every time they encountered the plant, the sex of its flowers had changed.

It is not unusual for plants to be hermaphrodites — that is, for their flowers to have both male and female reproductive functions — but this species, a bush tomato whose fertilized purple flowers produce cream-color fruits, did not conform even to the fluid norms of the plant kingdom.” — Livia Albeck-Ripka, New York Times