Balloon-cherry

Physalis angulata, cutleaf groundcherry or balloon-cherry, is an annual herb in the family Solanaceae native to the Americas and now naturalized as a weed throughout the tropics and warm temperate regions of the world. Plants grow 30–100 cm tall with sparsely hairy or glabrous, angular, often purplish-tinged stems that branch dichotomously. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic, 4–10 cm long, with coarsely toothed to nearly entire margins and an acute apex on slender petioles. Small, pendulous, solitary flowers borne in leaf axils have a five-lobed pale yellow corolla, often unspotted at the throat, with five protruding bluish anthers. The diagnostic feature is the fruiting calyx, which enlarges to form a papery, ten-ribbed, inflated lantern 2–4 cm long that fully encloses the small, smooth, yellowish berry inside. The plant favours disturbed soils, cultivated ground, and waste places, and can complete its life cycle rapidly in warm seasons.