Biosystematics Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands.
PeerJ. 2022 Jan 17;10:e12790. doi: 10.7717/peerj.12790. eCollection 2022.
Soon after the Spanish conquest of the Americas, the first tomatoes were presented as curiosities to the European elite and drew the attention of sixteenth-century Italian naturalists. Despite of their scientific interest in this New World crop, most Renaissance botanists did not specify where these 'golden apples' or '' came from. The debate on the first European tomatoes and their origin is often hindered by erroneous dating, botanical misidentifications and inaccessible historical sources. The discovery of a tomato specimen in the sixteenth-century 'En Tibi herbarium' kept at Leiden, the Netherlands, triggered research on its geographical provenance and morphological comparison to other tomato specimens and illustrations from the same time period.
Recent digitization efforts greatly facilitate research on historic botanical sources. Here we provide an overview of the ten remaining sixteenth-century tomato specimens, early descriptions and 13 illustrations. Several were never published before, revealing what these tomatoes looked like, who saw them, and where they came from. We compare our historical findings with recent molecular research on the chloroplast and nuclear DNA of the 'En Tibi' specimen.
Our survey shows that the earliest tomatoes in Europe came in a much wider variety of colors, shapes and sizes than previously thought, with both simple and fasciated flowers, round and segmented fruits. Pietro Andrea Matthioli gave the first description of a tomato in 1544, and the oldest specimens were collected by Ulisse Aldrovandi and Francesco Petrollini in c. 1551, possibly from plants grown in the Pisa botanical garden by their teacher Luca Ghini. The oldest tomato illustrations were made in Germany and Switzerland in the early 1550s, but the Flemish Rembert Dodoens published the first image in 1553. The names of early tomatoes in contemporary manuscripts suggest both a Mexican and a Peruvian origin. The 'En Tibi' specimen was collected by Petrollini around 1558 and thus is not the oldest extant tomato. Recent molecular research on the ancient nuclear and chloroplast DNA of the En Tibi specimen clearly shows that it was a fully domesticated tomato, and genetically close to three Mexican landraces and two Peruvian specimens that probably also had a Mesoamerican origin. Molecular research on the other sixteenth-century tomato specimens may reveal other patterns of genetic similarity, past selection processes, and geographic origin. Clues on the 'historic' taste and pest resistance of the sixteenth-century tomatoes will be difficult to predict from their degraded DNA, but should be rather sought in those landraces in Central and South America that are genetically close to them. The indigenous farmers growing these traditional varieties should be supported to conserve these heirloom varieties .
在西班牙征服美洲后不久，第一批西红柿作为奇珍异宝呈献给欧洲精英，并引起了 16 世纪意大利自然学家的关注。尽管这些文艺复兴时期的植物学家对这种新大陆作物很感兴趣，但大多数人并没有具体说明这些“金苹果”或“番茄”来自何处。关于第一批欧洲西红柿及其起源的争论往往因错误的年代、植物学错误鉴定和难以获取的历史资料而受阻。在荷兰莱顿的“En Tibi 标本集”中发现的一个西红柿标本，引发了对其地理起源和与同一时期其他西红柿标本和插图进行形态比较的研究。
最近的数字化工作极大地促进了对历史植物学来源的研究。在这里，我们提供了对现存的 10 个 16 世纪西红柿标本、早期描述和 13 个插图的概述。其中一些以前从未发表过，揭示了这些西红柿的外观、何人所见以及来自何处。我们将历史发现与最近对“En Tibi”标本的叶绿体和核 DNA 的分子研究进行了比较。
我们的调查显示，欧洲最早的西红柿有比以前想象的更多的颜色、形状和大小，既有单瓣花，也有复瓣花，果实有圆形和分节的。1544 年，皮埃特罗·安德烈亚·马蒂奥利（Pietro Andrea Matthioli）首次对西红柿进行了描述，最古老的标本是由乌利塞·阿尔德罗万迪（Ullisse Aldrovandi）和弗朗切斯科·佩特罗利尼（Francesco Petrollini）于 1551 年左右收集的，可能来自他们的老师卢卡·吉尼（Luca Ghini）在比萨植物园种植的植物。最早的西红柿插图是在德国和瑞士于 16 世纪 50 年代早期制作的，但佛兰德的雷姆伯特·多登斯（Rembert Dodoens）于 1553 年首次发表了图像。当时手稿中早期西红柿的名称表明它们可能来自墨西哥和秘鲁。“En Tibi”标本是由佩特罗利尼于 1558 年左右采集的，因此它并不是现存最古老的西红柿。最近对“En Tibi”标本的古代核和叶绿体 DNA 的分子研究清楚地表明，它是一种完全驯化的西红柿，与来自墨西哥的三个地方品种和两个来自秘鲁的标本在遗传上非常接近，这些标本可能也起源于中美洲。对其他 16 世纪西红柿标本的分子研究可能会揭示其他遗传相似性、过去选择过程和地理起源模式。从其退化的 DNA 预测 16 世纪西红柿的“历史”味道和抗虫害能力将很困难，但应该在与它们在遗传上接近的中美洲和南美洲的地方品种中寻找。应该支持种植这些传统品种的本土农民来保护这些祖传品种。
