Mystery Physalis of Australia: P. viscosa? P. hederifolia? Both? Neither?
Low-growing, rhizomatous populations of Physalis in Australia were originally thought to be P. viscosa. That's a coastal South American species, so you can imagine it getting introduced with ship's ballast. As a member of Section Viscosae, it should be covered in a velvety-layer of short, dichotomously branched hairs and have fruit ripening from golden yellow to tangerine orange.
Here are some nice examples in their native South America:
Branched hairs, orange fruit: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/114072317
Branched hairs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/106217982
Branched hairs, orange fruit: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/84745350
Orange fruit: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/114319659
Orange fruit, not very hairy: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40090919
Orange fruit, not very hairy: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/39768541
Nice branched hairs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/65508666
Physalis viscosa has also been reported as an invasive in South Africa. Some good examples:
Branched hairs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/11325630
Branched hairs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/11110557
Branched hairs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/106738228
Branched hairs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/70448588
Rhizome & non-reflexed corollas: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/16823416
Nice branched hairs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9955171
Now to compare to plants in Australia:
Here's everything currently identified as P. viscosa from Australia: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6744&taxon_id=78571
A group of plants with non-reflexed corollas and what look like branched hairs:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/104696673
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Thanks for this. I see some (perhaps non authoritative) references to P. hederifolia also having branched hairs, e.g. https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/taxa/index.php?taxauthid=1&taxon=198&clid=2639
But I think your implication is that they do not have branched hairs?
In the traditional sense, P. hederifolia was a widely variable species. The new Flora of North America Physalis treatment just came out, and P. hederifolia has had the branched-haired variety removed from it as P. fendleri, leaving the the now more narrowly defined P. hederifolia as a species with simple hairs. Physalis fendleri has pretty distinctive leaves, though, which don't look a lot like those of P. viscosa.
Thanks for that explanation! I might reach out to the botanist referenced re: the taxanomic update from P. viscosa to P. hederifolia in Australia.
The ones I've seen also do not have reflexed corollas, although are wide open. I just added this
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/180730208
I'll photograph hairs when I see it next. Thanks again for your thoughts!
By the way where would I read that new treatment? I can't find reference to it online yet. But it would be good to pass onto the botanists involved here.
The Flora of North America volume including the Solanaceae just came out this month. I assume they'll make an online version available through efloras or their own website, but I haven't checked that yet. I'm still waiting for my hardcopy to arrive in the mail.
I've been communicating with an Australian botanist about this, and they are waiting to see the new FNA Physalis treatment, too.
Thanks. I also contacted a botanist involved, who told me that it was a visiting botanist who identified specimens in the Melbourne herbarium as Physalis hederifolia which lead to the name change in Australia. That was some time ago, so perhaps this identification is under review so that the name P. hederifolia might now be applied only to plants without forked hairs.
BTW I added a close up photo of (forked) hairs to the above observation.
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