The "Honor Bright" or Lutescent gene is pretty interesting. There are some leaps of connection - no one had any original Honor Bright seeds, but Gleckler sold something called Lutescent in the 1950s or 1960s - certainly the description fits, but we don't know if the Livingston release had larger/better flavored fruit. I got Lutescent via a SSE transaction as well. The description of a yellow phase is iffy - I've not seen it, but what is striking is how white the unripe fruit are - so white to orange to red is typical. It will always be one of the weirdest plants in the garden!
The gene has shown up one other time in my tomato collection - I got Turkey Chomp from Don Branscomb (he sent dozens and dozens of varieties, many of which I shared with Carolyn - no way we ever got to growing them all out) - it was typically a regular leaf red tasty indeterminate tomato, but one plant was potato leaf - and has the lutescent gene package - yellowy foliage, and white to green to red fruit color phases - but larger (to 12 ounces), oblate, and pretty tasty. I named it "Surprise" because...well, it sure was!
I've worked that weirdo gene set into our dwarf project, but it is in early stages of exploration - I crossed Honor Bright/Lutescent (as purchased from Victory) with Dwarf Scarlet Heart to produce the Scotty family. There are some regular leaf and potato leaf, yellow foliaged dwarfs out of it, one with heart shaped fruits - one with pink fruit - fruit color phase white to pale green to the ripe color, flavor from not very good to promising. Pretty plants...and weird!
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Craig
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