This plant used to be grown in green houses and would a few decades ago rarely be seen as a roadside weed. Such is the mildness of the modern British climate that it is genuinely an established wild escape with this particular plant looking very healthy growing from a pile of rubble. It is originally an introduction from the Americas now grown for its fruit which can be yellow or orange as well as the familiar red.

It is now found through out the British Isles and has escaped very effectively in the north west and south east of England.

Solanum lycopersicum is a new name for Lycoperson esculentum published in 2010 in New Flora of the British Isles Edition 3 by Clive Stace.