In winter through early spring, you can sometimes find unspoiled, still-bright groundcherries sitting in the latticed remnants of their husks, like hearts suspended in paper ribcages
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Same here! We used to have these, and gooseberries, growing at the old house I lived in as a kid. When the house burned to the ground, the bushes were destroyed by a combination of flames and big trucks. I wish I could grow them now, but I can’t manage any gardening nowadays. Damn it.
I can get bags of frozen gooseberries sometimes, which aren’t as good, but are still a nice treat in pie or when making jam. Haven’t seen ground cherries in decades, though.
Alkekengi is native to Asia/Europe but is widely grown as a garden/ornamental plant in temperate parts of the world, including N. America. I took the photo in Portland, Oregon.
When I was a kid my family moved and my new friends there wanted to show me a cranberry tree, and I was like oh, I know cranberries, they don’t grow on a tree. But they went and showed me a shabby bush with these red boxes dangling. I was confused to the limit, why would people make these boxes??
So for the next two years I considered them to be really weird pranksters until discovering, that others people in the area call physalis cranberry there, and that this is indeed a real plant.
These plants (Alkekengi) are also known as Chinese lanterns bc the husks surrounding the fruits look like illuminated paper lanterns when they're fresh & bright, as in the image on the left
But I think they look just as lantern-like when the husks decay yet linger, revealing the bright orbs within
I think these are similar to what we in South Africa call Cape gooseberries (even if they are not indigenous to the Cape and nor are they related to gooseberries as usually understood).
That is interesting. In South Africa there are countless animal and plant names in which 'Cape' is a geographical marker, so I assumed the gooseberry was the same.
I had to look it up because they looked familiar, and yeah, slightly different cultivar but same species as cape gooseberry (which I've had in restaurants in England but never seen for sale)
The name put me off as I don't like actual gooseberries but they're not similar at all
So lovely! And as a plus, their sugars are more concentrated then, and they're sweeter and more delicious. We OWE it to ourselves to eat them when we find them like this – they're special little random treats just for us!
These are part of the nightshade family and are pretty toxic to animals. And pretty darn invasive. I’ve been trying to get rid of mine for years so the horses wouldn’t eat them. Nature puts them in a cage for a reason.
I was about to write that they look like some pretty toxic nightshades. I'm not sure I would feel safe eating them. But then I eat tomatoes and birdeye chillis...
A question for you. I've grown ground cherry, but I've never seen them turn red. Could this be a differnt variety of physalis, and if so, do you know what it is? It is beautiful.
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Beautiful picture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkekengi
From Software has made a couple monsters inspired by this fruit and its skeletal husk.
But I think they look just as lantern-like when the husks decay yet linger, revealing the bright orbs within
The name put me off as I don't like actual gooseberries but they're not similar at all
P. pruinosa I believe is more tart and native to Mexico/Central America
The species commonly cultivated in veggie gardens I believe is P. peruviana
"Uchuva" in Spanish, commonly known as (Aunt Molly's) Ground Cherry in English