No brother, there is "and" in between. You may join two modifiers with a conjunction. The following would be incorrect:
I've a sister who can solve difficult math, whose friend can easily make clear verbal part.... wrong.

Hi dear,

You can eliminate Choice E based on modifier issue

Answer (E) repeat the original error

There are two subjects without any kind of connecting word in between,Incorrect

Structure (E) : Heirloom tomatoes ,(modifier),(modifier)-(modifier)-heirlooms are <-----2 Subjects

shubhraghosh

Good point raised , keep such conceptual questions coming ...

Here is something which will certainly address your query ( From eGMAT) -

pronouns-debunking-popular-myths-intro-160811.html#p1272784

IMHO : The trick for this type of question is understanding the meaning of the question and then substituting both ( Or all ) the antecedents the Pronoun can refer to and check if the correct meaning is conveyed...

Request others to contribute their valuable opinion...
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First Glance

The underline is long, with multiple commas, and the sentence even includes dashes. Look for Structure, Meaning, Modifier, or Parallelism issues.

Issues

The core of the sentence is heirloom tomatoes & heirlooms are.

The core of this sentence would be equivalent to "Bob Anne are in town," as opposed to "Bob and Anne are in town." In other words, there are two subjects without any kind of connecting word in between - illegal move! Eliminate answer (A).

Scan the other answers to see whether any repeat this error.

(B) Although W, grown from X, appear Y, heirlooms are Z ...
(C) Although W, heirloom tomatoes, grown from X, heirlooms are Z
(D) Grown from X, heirloom tomatoes appear Y, heirlooms are Z ...
(E) Heirloom tomatoes, grown from X, although W, heirlooms are Z ...

While answer (D) does not repeat the exact error, it does introduce a different structural error. The core here is heirloom tomatoes appear Y heirlooms are Z. This is the equivalent of saying "Bob appears happy Bob is tall." This is a run-on sentence. Eliminate answer (D).

The Correct Answer

Correct answer (B) changes the sentence structure by placing heirloom tomatoes in the subordinate clause, leaving the later heirlooms as the sole subject of the sentence:

Although heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds, appear less appetizing - they are often green - heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

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Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom
tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year—they are often green and striped, or have
plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

The part between the “-“ is modifying the “cousins” (of heirloom tomatoes - HT)..hence the “cousins” should precede the “-“.

A. Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom
tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year
Incorrect as explained above …

B. Although heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year, appear less
appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins
Correct…
The structure here is :
Although HT appear less X than their cousins, HT are more Y …

C. Although they appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins,
heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year
Incorrect as explained above …

D. Grown from seeds saved during the previous year, heirloom tomatoes appear less appetizing than
most of their round and red supermarket cousins
Two independent clauses “heirloom tomatoes appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins” and
“heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand” are incorrectly separated by a comma only..we need a FANBOYS between these two clauses.

E. Heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year, although they appear less
appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins
We remove the modifier “grown from seeds…”, the sentence reads “Heirloom tomatoes although they appear less
appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins” …
Noun “Heirloom tomatoes” is already the subject of the sentence and hence pronoun “they” immediately succeeding the noun is redundant and ungrammatical
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Hello leanhdung,

You have analyzed this official sentence quite nicely.

I would just like to say that Choice E is incorrect because there is no verb for the subject heirloom tomatoes in this choice.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Dear Experts,
Just so that i understand this correctly, —they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises— is a modifier modifying Heirloom tomatoes ...... does it not need to be close to the noun it modifies?
Here it's kinda spaced very far and there are other possible (but less probable) subjects such as supermarket cousins which this modifier could still potentially point to.
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hazelnut thank you so much, your simple explanation enlightened all my doubts
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I agree that the question becomes more straightforward once the above is made clear.

However, the original sentence is presented as:
"Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand."

Someone not familiar with the subject matter could understandably interpret heirloom tomatoes and heirlooms as two distinct varieties. More specifically that the sentence intends to convey that there are two separate varieties of fruits: one being the green and striped heirlooms and the other being their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes.

If you were not familiar with the subject matter or did not automatically assume that because they use the same word they must be the same thing (not always the case), and hence did not already know that the latter reference to heirlooms is referring to the same thing as earlier mention of heirlooms tomatoes, you would embark upon the SC process from a very different perspective, excluding options that conflate heirlooms tomatoes and heirlooms such as
B) "Although heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year, appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins."

Down this line of reasoning C) appears as a potentially valid option:
C) "Although they appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year"

While their could be issues with this answer due to ambiguity of pronoun "they", if I am not mistaken pronouns can technically refer to an antecedent appearing later in the sentence, and this option appears to preserve the intention of the writer than B) which appears to fundamentally change the meaning.

Original stem:
"Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand."

Here it appears as if "heirloom tomatoes" is an appositive noun for "their round and red supermarket cousins" and that "grown from [...] year" is modifying "supermarket cousins." If I am not mistaken, there appears to be nothing inherently incorrect or illogical with this interpretation on its own.

Option C) Preserves this, however option B) fundamentally changes this by making heirloom tomatoes = heirlooms and furthermore "grown from [...] year" no longer modifies the "supermarket cousins."

Tl;dr:

I agree option B is clearly correct once you understand that heirloom tomatoes and heirlooms are the same thing, and then reconstruct the sentence to give effect to this meaning. However it appears as if there is nothing in the question that makes this clear and it is equally likely that someone perceives these as two distinct varieties, resulting in either the wrong answer or at least lot of time wasted before they resign to the alternative that they might be the same thing.

Option A is:

Although appearing less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

or, if we remove some of the additional information:

Although appearing ABC, heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year—they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more XYZ.

The problem here is that there are two nouns ("heirloom tomatoes" and "heirlooms") in the subject position for the verb are.
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