Angular Ground Cherry (Physalis angulata)

Angular Ground Cherry (Physalis angulata) is a smooth, highly branched annual, 12-36" tall. Leaves are alternate, ovate to lanceolate-ovate, 2-4" long, irregularly and coarsely toothed. Flowers are yellowish, not dark in the center, broadly bell-shaped, about 0.5" wide, 5 shallow lobs; fruiting calyx is sunken at the base and smooth, about as wide as long, typically purple-veined and 10-ribbed. 

Bloom time: July - September. 

Fruits are pulpy or mealy berries with numerous seeds, enclosed in a lantern-like, papery calyx. 

Where Found: Filed, roadsides, and open woodlands. A southern U.S. species extending north to VA, IL, and KS. Thinly scattered across the western 2/3 of TN. 

Notes: Nine species of ground cherries are found in TN, all fairly similar in appearance with yellow, bell-like flowers, usually solitary, and often brown at the corolla base.