Yesterday we inspect the beach after Mass. On the direction , I came across a very nice mulberry tree tree diagram by the main road , absolutely loaded with fruit . I ’ll post a video on that tree shortly . But at the beach itself , we first found a very barbellate nightshade produce on the sand dune .
At first I thought it might be a tropical pop apple , but with some seek it turned out to be a utile and edible coinage known conversationally as the “ litchi tomato . ”
Of of course , the first topographic point I move around for info on tempestuous plant bump is Green Deane’sEat The Weedswebsite .
He write :
A native of South America , particularly Paraguay , it ’s a unfearing nightshade that reseed itself and beat along quite nicely without man ’s attention . So even though you may educate it , the nomadic botanical often hit out on its own .
In North America its dispersion is rather unconventional . function around the rim states of the US it is constitute from Oregon south and Orient to West Virginia excluding New Mexico . Then it goes to the mid - Atlantic states skipping Maryland . It is also immortalise in Massachusetts and Ontario . You will have to look at specific country maps to place the counties the Litchi Tomato has been found it . A tough member of a fragile family it can take a light frost even temperatures down to 25F. In warm climate it overwinters ( and get more spiny ! ) A bushy indeterminate , it does , however , need more than one plant life to cross pollinated .
In its native South America the Litchi Tomato has been used in local dishful since before written records . And most unusual for this genus it has spines yet is still edible . Usually plants in this genus with spikelet are very toxic if not mortal .
It ’s a beautiful and wild - looking plant life .
On the way back to the car , I came across a second nightshade , this one without thorns .
It always astounds me how plants can make do to live in rough maritime conditions . The sand whips around , the sun outfox down , and salt is everywhere – yet here ’s a pretty piddling nightshade , half - buried in the shiny white Pensacola moxie .
The blooms were what fee my off to it being a nightshade . They reckon very much like other groundcherries I have seen , as well as the blooms of the cultivate tomatillo .
This plant life is the coastal ground cherry . Green Deanealso writes on this and its first cousin :
Another ground cerise I ’ve constitute tasty is the Coastal Ground Cherry ( Physalis angustifolia ) that I have constitute on the west coast of Florida .
The fruit is edible raw or manipulate , as in PIE or preserve . The fruit can shine from the plant before it is ripe . That usually use up a workweek or two or more until the husk has dry out and the fruit a golden yellow to orange . Each fruit is wrap in a shuck that is NOT comestible . The yield will stack away several weeks if left in the husk . Unripe fruit — light green — is toxic . good fruits are light to gold yellow . If any ripe yield has a biting aftertaste should be cook first . If it is still sulphurous after cooking , do n’t corrode it .
He further notes :
A angry species that takes to home gardening very well is Physalis angulata , the Cutleaf Ground Cherry . It ’s tall and fecund under polish .
Which is cool , because a admirer gave me a cutleaf ground cherry which is sitting in a bay window in my glasshouse or else of living in the ground where it should be . I take to go grab it and implant it !
If you do n’t haveGreen Deane ’s book of account , I highly recommend it .
Though you may see just “ weeds ” as an inexperient forager , over meter you ’ll commence to spot utilitarian and edible species . Later , you ’ll be able to recognize works family , as we did with these nightshades .
Much to our satisfaction , both are comestible . If we get a chance , we ’ll go back soon and see if we can propagate both of them to convey home to our food wood .
