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Chinese Lanterns
Written By: Jeannie Chambers - The Accidental Gardener | Issue: 2018/10 - October
It’s that time of year again. Fall, better known as pumpkin season. If you look in the grocery store, just about everything comes in pumpkin spice flavor or scent. If it doesn’t smell or taste like a pumpkin, then it better look like a pumpkin, which brings me to the wonderful plant Physalis alkekengi, but their friends call them Chinese Lanterns. Other names are Japanese Lantern, Bladder Cherry, Ground Cherry, and Cape Gooseberry.
Some people consider this plant to be an obnoxious, invasive threat, just like some people view other people as obnoxious, invasive threats, but as we’ve learned, much is in the eyes of the beholder. These plants are low growing, two feet high at most, but can spread to three feet or more. Suitable for growing in zones 4-9. The lower the zone, the more sun it needs, otherwise partial shade works fine.
Chinese lanterns are an herbaceous perennial, meaning it completely dies back in winter and returns in the spring. Well, we think it has died back, but there’s a whole crew working in their own underground tunnel spreading its rhizome, so it can pop up here, there, and everywhere if left unchecked. If the pods are left to fall to the ground, propagation occurs that way as well.
As the plant grows, it produces a white flower which gives way to a calyx which matures into the inflated, papery “Chinese lantern” that is orangish red and also resembles a pumpkin.
While the unripe berries and leaves are poisonous, and these plants should come with the warning: “Don’t try this at home,” there have been medicinal uses for this plant for centuries as a diuretic, antiseptic, as a sedative, a treatment for liver, arthritis, and as a hallucinogenic. Some say the ripe berries taste like a sweet tomato and is full of Vitamin A and C. Tomatillo, another nightshade from the same genus, is another cousin, so maybe there is something to chew on, but remember the old cereal commercial? “I’m not gonna try it. You try it.”
Chinese lanterns are beautiful as fresh cut or dried to use in arrangements and wreaths. If you’re worried about the plant spreading, try planting in a container, either above or below ground. Enjoy this plant as you celebrate pumpkins through November, but gather before the frost kills it back.
