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Physalis minima
Family: Solanaceae
Malay name : Leletup
English names: Wild capegooseberry
Indian names: kupanti, budda, budamma (Andhra Pradesh); ban tipariya (Bengal); parpoti, popti (Gujrat); rasbhary (Himachal Pradesh); tulati pati (Hindi); gudde hannu (Karnataka); njodi njotta (Kerala); chirboti, dhan mori (Maharashtra); tholtakalli (Tamilnadu).
Physalis minima Linn. is commonly found on the bunds of the fields, wastelands, around the houses, on roadsides, etc., where the soil is porous and rich in organic matter. It is an annual herbaceous plant having a very delicate stem and leaves. It is found growing in the sub-Himalayas up to altitudes of 1,650 metres. According to Duthie (1905), it also grows in Afghanistan, Baluchistan, tropical Africa, Australia. Ceylon, etc.
A small, delicate, erect, annual, pubescent herb, 1.5 metres tall; internodal length, 8.2 cm; more or less the whole plant is pubescent.
Leaves, petiolate (4.1 cm long), ovate to cordate, pubescent, delicate, exstipulate, acuminate, having reticulate palmate venation and undulate margins; dorsal surface of the leaves, dark green and the ventral surface, light green; 9.7 cm long and 8.1 cm broad.
Flowers, pedicellate having 1.2 cm long pedicel, hermaphrodite, complete, solitary, small companulate, 1.2 to 1.4 cm in diameter; calyx; gamosepalous, 5-toothed, actinomorphic, green, persistent, downy; corolla, gamopetalous with five petals, the petal cup, 1.1 to 1.3 cm long, yellow, having five black spots on yellow ground in the middle of the corolla cup; stamens, five, epipetalous, 6 to 7 mm long, having a black filament and greenish-yellow anther lobes; style, black, 9 min long, having a yellowish stigma at the top and a yellowish round ovary at the base.
Fruit, a berry, enclosed within the enlarged, 10-ribbed, reticulately veined calyx, which is 4.1 cm long and 2.5 cm broad; berries, stalked (stalk, 2.2 cm long), almost round having a pinhead-sized depression at the end; diameter, 1.4 to 1.6 cm; weight, 2.15 g; volume, 1.32 ml; fully mature fruits primrose yellow 601/2 at full maturity.
Seeds, globose, Dresden yellow 64/3; weight and volume of l00 seeds, 113 mg and 197 microlitres respectively.
The flowering and fruiting season
The flowers appear in acropetal succession, i.e. the lower flowers appear and form fruits earlier than the upper ones, which emerge as well as set fruit later. In this way, the flowering and fruiting season of this plant starts from March-April and continues up to the end of November. The fruiting starts from the middle of August and continues till the end of November. |
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