The cutleaf groundcherry is a plant preferring disturbed soils; there were acres and acres of groundcherries growing on fallow row crop fields where the photograph was taken. According to the Nature Conservancy Global Invasive Species Team, “It infests primarily annual crops but also occurs in orchards, nurseries, fallow land…[a] widely distributed tropical and subtropical weed”.

The groundcherry produces small, campanulate (bell-shaped) yellow flowers with bright blue anthers in the axils of the leaves. Once pollinated, the flower does something remarkable. The yellow corolla dries and drops away, the sepals grow to surround the developing berry with a tiny, ten-angled ‘Chinese lantern’. The berry ripens to a yellowish-orange and is edible*, but, as with all solanaceous plants, all other parts should be considered toxic.

 

*Edible and safe to eat are two different things. Any plant taken from the wild should be handled cautiously. Even if a plant part is edible, it is impossible to know whether the plant has been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides and it is not worth the risk to your health.

 

(Compiled from: Hortus Third, Staff L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan, NY, 1976; “Cutleaf Ground-cherry, Physalis angulata L.”, David W. Hall, Vernon V. Vandiver and Brent A. Sellers, FW031, IFAS, University of Florida ; Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants Wunderlin, R. P., and B. F. Hansen, Institute for Systematic Botany, University of South Florida, Tampa, 2004. (), [S. M. Landry and K. N. Campbell (application development), Florida Center for Community Design and Research.])