Another interesting type of tomato foliage to look at is the woolly or angora type. Just as it sounds, this type of leaf is fuzzy and soft with a bluish tint, sort of like a lamb’s ear plant. The trichomes (tiny hairlike extensions) are thicker and in much greater numbers along all the vegetative surfaces of a woolly leaf tomato. In some instances, the fruits can even be fuzzy, almost like a peach skin. It is controlled by the spontaneous dominant mutant woolly (Wo) gene. There are several different genetic combinations of this gene that can make a woolly plant, but in a homozygous combination (meaning when two dominant woolly genes align), this can be lethal to the seedling that expresses it.

Some examples of woolly leaf plant varieties are Woolly Kate, Woolly Zebra, Extravagante Rouffiange, Woolly Blue Jay, and Seattle’s Blue Woolly Mammoth. This brings us to the end of the leaf types series, but there are more out there in the form of wild species tomatoes. For more information on wild traits, please visit Joseph Lofthouse’s page.