{"id":275877,"date":"2025-08-14T12:56:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T16:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/?p=275877"},"modified":"2025-08-14T12:56:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T16:56:25","slug":"helen-mirren-tomatoes-bisexual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/video\/helen-mirren-tomatoes-bisexual-275877","title":{"rendered":"Helen Mirren says tomatoes are \u2018bisexual.\u2019 It\u2019s a bit more complicated"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"is-style-article-kik\">Dame Helen Mirren said she discovered that tomatoes are \u201cbisexual.\u201d While the fruit isn\u2019t bi in terms of sexuality, there is something queer about it<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-9-16 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Helen Mirren says tomatoes are \u2018bisexual.\u2019 It\u2019s a bit more complicated | Xtra Magazine\" width=\"540\" height=\"960\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b9ZXg44600U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Tomatoes are bisexual, according to Dame Helen Mirren. But is it actually true?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During a segment on <em>The Tonight Show,<\/em> Mirren shared that she learned the <a href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/helen-mirren-says-tomatoes-are-bisexual-i-looked-it-up-11789424\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">flowers on tomato vines are \u201cbisexual\u201d<\/a> while making salsa with <em>The Thursday Murder Club<\/em> co-star Pierce Brosnan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mirren isn\u2019t exactly right about the terminology, though. Tomatoes are cosexual, which means that a tomato plant has both pistils and stamens within the same flower. It\u2019s a common trait of flowering plants that allows for the ability to self-pollinate.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-end\">But there is something queer about tomatoes! Back in the 1970s, scientists in Australia were confused by <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2019\/06\/19\/this-tomato-is-the-first-sexually-fluid-plant\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the Dungowan Bush Tomato plant<\/a> because of its ability to vary between male, female or neither throughout its life\u2014rather than having a static expression of its sex like most other tomatoes.<br>The plant was later named <a href=\"https:\/\/phytokeys.pensoft.net\/article\/33526\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Solanum plastisexum in 2019,<\/a> translated to plastic or malleable sex, and defined as a distinct species with sexual conditions outside of the typical binary. We look into the surprising queerness of the humble fruit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dame Helen Mirren said she discovered that tomatoes are \u201cbisexual.\u201d While the fruit isn\u2019t bi in terms of sexuality, there is something queer about it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1177,"featured_media":275881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"editorial_slug":"129","_editorial_slug":"129","exclude_from_latest_block":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,6,4,10],"contributors":[3053,1933],"topic":[75,1922,129],"clients":[],"series":[],"timeliness":[58],"editorial_format":[2088],"type-of-work":[2584],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275877"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275887,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275877\/revisions\/275887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275877"},{"taxonomy":"contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributors?post=275877"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=275877"},{"taxonomy":"clients","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/clients?post=275877"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=275877"},{"taxonomy":"timeliness","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/timeliness?post=275877"},{"taxonomy":"editorial_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/editorial_format?post=275877"},{"taxonomy":"type-of-work","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xtramagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-of-work?post=275877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}