242 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



In moist, rich, usually rocky woodlands, Quebec to Wisconsin, south 

 to Florida, Alabama and Arkansas. 



Potato Family 



Solanaceae 

 Clammy Ground Cherry 



Physalis heterophylla Nees von Esenbeck 



Plate 193 



Stems erect, becoming decumbent and spreading, i to 3 feet high, 

 from a perennial, slender, creeping rootstock, viscid, glandular and hairy 

 with long-spreading, jointed, flat hairs. Leaves alternate, ovate, at least 

 the lower ones usually somewhat heart-shaped, the apex pointed, texture 

 rather thick, the margins sinuate toothed or nearly entire. Calyx hairy, 

 the margin with five-pointed lobes. Corolla three-fourths to seven-eighths 

 of an inch broad, greenish yellow with a purplish or purplish brown center, 

 open bell-shaped, five-lobed; anthers usually yellow. Fruit a small, yellow 

 berry inclosed by the enlarged calyx. 



In rich soil, along roads and banks, usually where the soil has been 

 disturbed. Flowering in July and August. 



There are three or four additional species of Physalis in New York, 

 all of which are perennial by rootstocks. The Smooth Ground Cherry 

 (Physalis subglabrata Mackenzie & Bush) , is easy to identify 

 because it is smooth or nearly smooth with ovate or ovate-lanceolate 

 leaves. 



The Virginia Ground Cherry (Physalis virginiana Miller) 

 is not easy to distinguish from the Clammy Ground Cherry, but is usually 

 hairy and little or not at all viscid, the berry reddish, and the fruiting 

 calyx smoother and deeply sunken at the base. 



The Jamestown or Jimson Weed (Datura stramonium Linnaeus) 

 (Figure XXVII) is a stout, smooth annual plant, i to 5 feet high; large, 

 thin, ovate leaves with irregularly lobed margins; flowers white or violet, 3 

 to 4 inches long, funnelform, with a five-lobed margin; fruit an ovoid, 

 densely prickly capsule about 2 inches high. Frequent in waste places 

 and fields as a weed, naturalized from tropical regions. 



