sweasel.com

Physalis is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family.

George Takei voice “OH My!”

…and is related to the tomato? So the tomato is somehow related to nightshade? No wonder the Europeans thought they were poisonous.

Bitter/sweet and best when dipped in chocolate. (so the internet says)

Looks like they’d be hard to grow…kudos!

Have a nice weekend, everyone :+)

There are apparently 90+ species of physalis. I didn’t make any links, did I? I took the pictures earlier, but we went out and came back late and I’ve only just posted the text.

But yes, it’s a nightshade. The one he grew me is Physalis peruviana.

It’s one of the most valuable, complex and fascinating families of plants that we have, Skandia (and my favourite) – the solanaceae. It contains a lot of useful (and some very unpleasant) drugs but also potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and many ornamentals like petunias and nicotiania (um, yes, tobacco).

The fact that so many poisonous and psychoactive alkaloids come from it is certainly why it got its sinister reputation but as they also have their uses in medicine, I tend to think that as just one more reason to like it.

Those are beautiful! I have never heard of them.

Tomatillos—that’s what they’re called in Texas. Though I never bought any that looked as pretty as yours. That photo is gorgeous. Very popular in Tex-Mex cuisine, especially salsa.

I still need a man like that for my own! I’d be glad to be his moll if he would grow me gooseberries an’ stuff.

Beautiful and tasty!

It makes one wonder what the utility is of a taxonomic class that contains aubergines, gooseberries, Habanero peppers and henbane (the last of which will kill yer chickens dead if you don’t grub it up pronto).

I quite like the paper lanterns. Badgers do take good care of thier Badger Babes!

We grew ground cherries (not sure of the variety, but yummy) a few years ago, and they flourished. We have fairly cold winters, hot summers, and they re-seeded themselves for several years in a row, all over the place.

These look, suspiciously, like what we call “Japanese Lanterns”.
If they are, god help you and your garden as they will overrun your beds.
Any trace of roots left in the ground will result in the damn things coming back in forces unimaginable.

Deborah: The Tomatillo and Cape Gooseberry are related, but NOT the same thing.

Cape Gooseberry [also not related to gooseberries!] are sweet when ripe, if also tart.

Tomatillos … not really, ever.

Sigivald @ October 20, 2015, 10:10 pm:
Deborah: The Tomatillo and Cape Gooseberry are related, but NOT the same thing.

Indeed so. Tomatillo is physalis philadelphica, Cape Gooseberry is physalis peruviana. Also, tomatillo is usually green or greenish-red, while Cape Gooseberry is golden yellow-red.