Wikipedia is a fantastic source of useless (and useful) information. After an entertaining read of made up words in the Simpsons, I read the tomacco page….
In 2003, inspired by The Simpsons, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon successfully grafted a tomato plant onto the roots of a tobacco plant, which was possible because both plants come from the same family, Solanaceae or nightshade, and furthermore both plants are dicotyledons. (It is not possible to graft monocotyledons, because the xylem and the phloem are distributed in bundles throughout the stem, and therefore it is impossible to align the vascular tissues of the two plants.)
Baur suspected that the normal looking tomato that resulted may have contained a lethal amount of nicotine, however testing gave it the all clear (although the leaves of the plant did contain nicotine) – where’s the fun in that?
2 replies on “cromulent postings”
So we’re hoping he neither sold it to the tobacco companies or allowed his animals to start munching on them…
now thats some funny shite!