A herbaceous annual up to 30 cm. high, with striate stems, often pubescent. Leaves alternate, ovate-soinute, more or less pubescent, apex acute, base cuneate, margins shallowly toothed or lobed; petiole 1.3 to 3.2 cm long. Flowers solitary, pedicels very slender, noding, 3 to 8 mm long. Fruit (berry) round, 8 to 12 mm in diameter, green, many-seeded, entirely enclosed in the enlarged, 5 to 10 ribbed, membranous calyx. Seeds smooth or tuberculate, rugose, compressed, 2 mm in diameter, orange-yellow.

The fruit is appetizer, bitter, diuretic, laxative and tonic. Extracts from the plant have shown anticancer activity; diuretic (aerial part and fruit); abortifacient (aerial part)

PIER
Plants for a Future

Dihydroxyphysalin B2-4 and physalins A. B and X (aerial part)

Gonorrhea, as a tonic, diuretic and laxative (fruit). The juice of the leaves is used as a remedy for earache.

Chandel et al., Biodiversity in Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in India.