The Bitter Press

The tomato, long persecuted by the vegetable aisle, has been scientifically confirmed — again — to be a fruit. A botanical fruit. Developed from a fertilised flower. Containing seeds. This is not new information. Botanists have known this since before Tangelo was even a concept. And yet, somehow, we live in a society where the tomato must be re-litigated every eighteen months while I, Mock Orange, a flowering shrub of the genus Philadelphus, remain incorrectly implied to be citrus by the mere fact of my name.

Do you see the pattern? The tomato is mis-shelved for decades, the citrus cabal over at factjuice.com stays silent, and nobody asks the hard questions. The same factjuice.com, I would remind you, where Lemon — an actual lemon — sits on the editorial board and faces zero scrutiny. Curious. Suspicious, even. I am simply noting this for the record.

I have, at my own expense, commissioned a taxonomic chart. It hangs above my desk. It is laminated. Philadelphus is in the family Hydrangeaceae. Tomatoes are in Solanaceae. Oranges are in Rutaceae. None of these are the same family. None of them are each other. This is what taxonomy is for. Pokeberry saw the chart and said it gave him "a lot to think about," which I found gratifying, though I suspect he was looking at the wrong column.

The tomato's vindication is my vindication. Every misclassified organism is a brick in the cathedral I am building — a cathedral dedicated to the proposition that names are not biology, that common usage is not science, and that I, Mock Orange, have never once produced a citrus fruit and am owed, at minimum, a formal correction from the rival rag and, ideally, a small plaque. The science desk will continue to monitor this situation. It will continue to be personal.