Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Physalis peruviana
Common name
Cape gooseberry
Family
Solanaceae
Where found
Roadsides and other disturbed sites. Coast and ranges.
Notes
Introduced short-lived shrub to 1 m high, densely hairy with glandular or simple hairs. Fruit fleshy. Leaves alternating up the stems, 2 per node, but not opposite each other, to 13 cm long and 40 mm wide, bases cordate, margins entire or shallowly toothed. Flowers dull yellow, with distinct purple-brown spots in the throat, 10–15 mm long, 5-angled. Flowering: mainly spring to summer. Fruit yellow to orange, 10–20 mm in diameter, aromatic, edible. Flowers single in the leaf-axils and the forks of the stems. Fruiting calyx enclosing the fruit papery, pale yellow-green to gold, drying to pale brown, 10-angled, 27–40 mm long.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Physalis~peruviana (accessed 31 January, 2021)
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