Flora of North America species comparison

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Physalis longifolia

common groundcherry, ground-cherry, long leafed tomatillo, long-leaf ground-cherry, wild tomatillo
Habit Herbs perennial, rhizomatous, rhizomes deeply buried, stout, glabrous or sparsely strigose, hairs simple, antrorse, to 0.5 mm.
Stems

erect or erect to decumbent, branching frequently at distal nodes or several-branched from base, branches spreading or ascending, 1–6 dm.
Leaves

petiolate;

petiole 1/5–2/5 blade;

blade ovate to ovate-lanceolate or broadly lanceolate, 2.5–10(–13) × 0.5–6(–7) cm, base truncate to rounded, margins entire to coarsely dentate or irregularly crenate-dentate with only a few teeth.
Pedicels

5–18 mm, 12–35 mm in fruit.
Flowers

calyx (5–)7–12 mm, sparsely strigose with short, antrorse hairs, lobes 3–6 mm;

corolla yellow with 5 purple-brown smudges, campanulate-rotate, 10–20 mm;

anthers yellow or blue-tinged, not twisted after dehiscence, 2–4 mm.
Fruiting calyces

loosely enclosing berry, 10-ribbed, 20–40 × 15–30 mm.
2n

= 24.

Physalis longifolia
Distribution
from USDA
North America; n Mexico [Introduced in Australia]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Varieties 3 (3 in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Stems erect to decumbent, branching at base; leaf blades glabrous.
var. texana
1. Stems erect, branching at distal nodes; leaf blades glabrous or sparsely strigose.
→ 2
2. Leaf blades narrowly ovate-lanceolate to lan­ceolate; anthers yellow.
var. longifolia
2. Leaf blades ovate to ovate-lanceolate or broadly lanceolate; anthers blue-tinged.
var. subglabrata
Source FNA vol. 14.
Parent taxa Solanaceae > Physalis
Sibling taxa
P. acutifolia, P. angulata, P. angustifolia, P. arenicola, P. caudella, P. cinerascens, P. cordata, P. crassifolia, P. fendleri, P. grisea, P. hederifolia, P. heterophylla, P. lanceolata, P. missouriensis, P. mollis, P. neomexicana, P. philadelphica, P. pubescens, P. pumila, P. solanacea, P. virginiana, P. walteri, P. ×elliottii
Subordinate taxa
P. longifolia var. longifolia, P. longifolia var. subglabrata, P. longifolia var. texana
Name authority Nuttall: Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., n. s. 5: 193. (1836)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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