Physalis crassifolia

Physalis crassifolia is a perennial flowering plant in the nightshade family, known by the common names yellow nightshade groundcherry and thick-leaf ground-cherry. It is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, where it grows in rocky, dry desert and mountain habitat. The plant produces a ridged, angular, branching stem approaching 80 centimetres long and may grow clumped, matted or erect. Its fleshy oval leaves are 1 to 3 centimetres long with smooth, wavy or bluntly toothed edges, and the herbage is glandular and coated in short hairs. The yellow, widely bell-shaped flowers, about 2 centimetres wide, grow from the leaf axils. As the fruit develops, the star-shaped calyx enlarges into an inflated, angled, lantern-like structure about 2 centimetres long that encloses the berry, the feature that gives ground-cherries their name.