Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Non-Native

Lifeform: Shrub

General: Herbaceous annuals or perennials to 60 cm tall, stems stout, erect, diffusely branching, leafy, herbage finely pubescent throughout with spreading hairs.

Leaves: Alternate, broadly ovate, 1.5-6 cm long, 1-4 cm wide, bases rounded or truncate to subcordate, often asymmetrical at the base, acute to apiculate at the tips, margins sinuate-dentate to entire.

Flowers: Yellow, white, or purple and darker in the center, corollas rotate or campanulate, 6-10 mm wide, obscurely 5-lobed, calyx 5-toothed, tubular-campanulate, 4-5 mm long, becoming greatly enlarged, ovoid-pyramidal, ca. 2 cm long in fruit, obscurely 10-angled, papery, veiny, stamens 5, anthers ovate, 1-1.5 mm long, greenish to purplish, flowers borne solitary on lateral peduncles.

Fruits: Globose berry. Seeds flat, numerous.

Ecology: Found in sandy soils along streams and washes, in fields, roadsides, and ditches, from 3,000-6,000 ft (914-1829 m); flowering September-October.

Distribution: Pennsylvania to Colorado, Florida, and Arizona, south to Panama.

Notes: Most sources cite this species as an annual, but not all. Most keys rely on the annual habit, as well as the erect stems branching from below the inflorescence (rarely from the base), the broadly ovate, thin, sinuous-dentate to entire leaves, and the yellow to greenish flowers with dark centers to help identify this species.

Ethnobotany: There is no specific use recorded for the species, but the genus has many uses.

Synonyms: Physalis edulis, P. pubescens, many others see Tropicos

Editor: LCrumbacher 2011

Etymology: Physalis comes from the Greek physalis, "a bladder or bubble," because of the inflated calyx, while peruviana likely means of or from Peru.

With slender filaments, acuminate lvs, and deep purple-blue (instead of yellow to light blue) anthers, occasionally escapes from cult. in our range.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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