The way I look at it is this: Lisa has seeds for tomatoes that I might like to grow, regardless of what she calls them, what they really are, or how rare they are or aren't. Really, none of that makes any difference to me when I'm out in the garden mid-August, admiring a particularly handsome plant loaded with tomatoes in all their beautiful stages of development. Or when I bite into a big, thick slice of juicy tomato meat fresh out of the garden. How about you?
If the exact history of a tomato is really all that important to you, I'd advise you to take Lisa's version of the history of several of her varieties with a grain of salt. But then can't that be said of the histories given for many tomatoes by vendors, or even "historians" in our hobby? I submit, for an example, the several varieties of Brandywine that carry the "Amish heritage" and a date of 1885 on the plant tag or in the catalog blurb? You know, the ones with red tomatoes, and pink tomatoes, and regular leaves, and potato leaves? (I won't even go into all the "histories" that claim "they've been in the family for 100 years or more."
How to handle it? I say if you buy seeds from Lisa for a tomato about which there is serious doubt, simply grow it, discover it's values, if good, grow it again; but share it only with cautionary notes as to it's source and supposed heritage.
Hope all y'all have a great tomato growing season. Lunch is over for me now, and it's time to go back outside and continue planting tomatoes of quesionable heritage!
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