THE FLORAL SYSTEM OF TOMATO

The tomato floral system is distinguished from that of Arabidopsis and Antirrhinum in several ways. The shoot is a sympodium, the first flow er of the inflorescence is apical and no bracts are formed. We discuss the possible function of genes affecting growth habit and inflorescen ce development and analyze in detail the unique developmental alterati ons caused by inhibition or ectopic expression of tomato-specific MADS -box genes. Preliminary analysis of transgenic tomato plants expressin g an alien homeotic gene and several different chimeric genes of the M ADS-box family is also reported.