Mr. Mikado

Turner’s Hybrid’ referred to the Iowa source of the original seed and presumed creator (whose biography remains murky), while ‘Mikado’ borrowed its name from the then wildly popular Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera of the same name, which opened in London on March 14, 1885. It is obvious that Peter Henderson wanted to cash in on the ‘Mikado’ craze just then sweeping the country. And if history is to be any judge, the case for ‘Mikado’ has won out because in Europe mikadofolium is now accepted botanical nomenclature for describing all tomatoes with potato-like leaves.