TFM: Cape gooseberry

Cape Gooseberry

Physalis peruviana (commonly known as the Cape Gooseberry or Ground-cherry or Golden Berry) is a species of Physalis indigenous to Central America, but grows well in Africa. It is related to the tomato, not at all related to the gooseberry or the Chinese gooseberry that the common name might suggest. The fruit is a small round berry, about the size of a marble, full of small seeds. It is bright yellow when ripe, and very sweet, making it ideal for baking into pies and making jam.

The most notable feature of the Cape Gooseberry is the single lantern-type pod that covers each berry, the feature that gives the gooseberry its "caped" appearance.

Native to Peru and Chile, where the fruits are casually eaten and occasionally sold in markets but the plant is still not an important crop, it has been widely introduced into cultivation in other tropical, subtropical and even temperate areas. The plant was grown by early settlers at the Cape of Good Hope before 1807. In South Africa it is commercially cultivated and common as an escape and the jam and canned whole fruits are staple commodities, often exported. It is cultivated and naturalized on a small scale in Gabon and other parts of Central Africa. Soon after its adoption in the Cape of Good Hope it was carried to Australia and there acquired its common.