Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Erect or ascending annual 10-100 cm tall with strongly angled, much-branched stems and sparingly pubescent to subglabrous foliage.

Leaves: Slender petioles 1.5-5 cm long, lanceolate, 6-35 mm wide, 2.5-8 cm long, deeply sinuate-toothed, cuneate at base, acute, attenuate at apex, margins finely ciliate.

Flowers: Pedicels 5-20 mm long, finely puberulent at anthesis, campanulate calyx, scarcely angular, 3-5 mm long with narrowly deltoid lobes, rotate corolla 12-20 mm diameter, whitish or light yellow with deeper yellow center; greenish anthers, linear, 3-4.5 mm long.

Fruits: Ovoid globose berry 1.5-2.5 cm long.

Ecology: Found on roadsides, fields, ditches from 100-4,000 ft (30-1219 m); flowers April-September.

Distribution: s CA, AZ, NM, TX, MO, LA, NC; south to c MEX.

Notes: Distinguished by being low-growing annual with dentate leaf margins; short hairs on stems, leaf margins and veins; and a white to yellowish rotate corolla.

Ethnobotany: Fruit eaten primarily by children as a snack food by the Gila River Pima; eaten raw, cooked into sauces, preserves and jams, dried and stored as food.

Etymology: Physalis from Greek physallis, a bladder or bubble, due to inflated calyx, while acutifolia means pointed leaves.

Synonyms: Physalis wrightii

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015