Shouldn’t the plants be much larger now? They still look the same as in the first image. I’m sorry but I’m just skeptical because it would be too good to be true for these to be hybrids. The flowers look EXACTLY like tomatillo flowers, not like any other species. They are the exact same color and the anthers and stigma are exactly the same as in tomatillos. The growth habit is also exactly like the growth habit of Tomatillos and I’ve had edema in normal Tomatillos under a grow lights multiple times.
If these are truly hybrids I’d be thrilled to get some pictures on their growth habit… etc..
It would also be interesting to know what Physalis longifolia looks like(your plants) in comparasion
Here are some Tomatillo flowers from my patch so you can see the similarity:
I would be glad to take a photo and upload it but Im not sure it changes anything for this discussion as I’ve already described the habit and stature of the plants here. I’m not sure you would find it that interesting, because yes once again they do look very tomatillo-ish, but the interesting part is not that in itself – it’s that within the context that they aren’t able to set fruit by themselves or really hardly at all with tomatillo pollen either. The tomatillo stature in the context of longifolia cytoplasm, cold / moist requirement for seed germination, male sterility and so forth is really what’s interesting.
Thanks! What does physalis longifolia look like? Where do you have the seeds from? Now you can actually make out that the leaves don’t really look like tomatillo leaves(less serration, longer)
Right! I would say overall the leaves look like a mix of tomatillo and longifolia. Some have more serration but none of them have the look of pure longifolia or pure tomatillo. This is true for the flowers as well, and they both vary from one plant to the other.
Here’s a photo of my longifolia (about to flower). I didn’t make these hybrids but I got my longifolia from Wojciech as well, who used it to make them.
Here is a leaf comparison with tomatillo. Some of the hybrid leaves are wider and shaped like tomatillo and some a longer, but they all have a darker glossy green color than tomatillo.
Nice! If that shoot really is from the same plant this means they are almost certainly perennial and rhizomatous. Have you tried pollinating some flowers with other Physalis pollen to see if they can set fruit?
My Physalis Virginiana is starting to open it’s first flowers. I’m not sure but Physalis Virgianiana seems to invest more energy in rhizomes than Physalis Longifolia(each plant already has 3+ shoots in the first year)
My self sown tomatillo population is late this year, been selected by the late frosts for a few years. But the first longifolia flower opened yesterday so I hand pollinated the hybrids. Yea it’s too early to conclude that it’s a sucker, it could be a stunted seedling. My buddy has one plant from this population that is making fruit with tomatillo pollen. But yea I agree with you I would rather cross it with longifolia to reenforce perennial habit. I should be able to try peruviana x longifolia, last year i wasn’t able to because peruviana doesn’t really like our summers.
Are your summers too hot or too cold? Peruviana grows well in my climate with short and cold summers(but most fruits can’t ripen early enough; average june highs are only 20-21 degrees C)
If your summers are too cold/ short: Physalis Peruviana is naturally a perennial(unlike Tomatillos). You can grow it in Pots and overwinter them indoors which will give you lots of early flowers next year
I have one large Peruviana Plant that is now beginning to flower. I will try crossing it but to be honest I don’t think that I will get any viable seeds or that fruit will even set because of the ploidy mismatch.
Crossing with Tomatillos or Physalis Pruinosa is much more promising in my opinion. I’m hoping that if I cross with Physalis Pruinosa I will get a male fertile F1 because it might be more closely related to Virginiana than Tomatillos
Hopefully the first Backcross or even the F1(unlikely) will already be perennial because Physalis Virginiana invests so much energy into growing shoots/ rhizomes
About half of the longifolia plants survived the winter. They didn’t flower last year as seedlings. Looks like they will flower this year as one year old plants.
In other news, I planted exactly one plant of tomatillo, cape groundcherry, and longifolia in my greenhouse. Will be interesting to see if any make seeds.
I also inter-planted cape groundcherry and tomatillo in my garden.
Peruviana would prefer the Andes over our hot humid summers. It somewhat suffers and doesn’t make many flowers or fruit.
Ive been surprised at the success of several inter-ploidy crosses so don’t completely discount it beforehand. For example I have fertile triploid citrus, fertile triploid passiflora (both of these are even pollen fertile). I’ve also crossed diploids to tetraploids and gotten fully fertile diploids.
But peruviana has enough interesting traits for me to work with, and the perennial aspect is nice even though the hardiness isn’t that much.
I’ve got a half dozen Peruviana plants going this year (just started to flower this week) and several tomatillo. I’m also planning to attempt to cross.
First Physalis Virginiana Flower has opened. I wasn’t quick enough to emasculate it so I just pollinated it with a Tomatillo flower because they are probably self incompatible so it doesn’t really matter. What is interesting is that it has only 4 petals compared to the usual 5(which might be because of genetic variation; the plants I have are VERY diverse even though they are all Physalis Virginiana)
First Physalis Peruviana flower opened today. I emasculated it without damaging the calyx or the style and applied lots of Pollen from Physalis Pruinosa as well as Tomatillos. Hopefully fruit will set
Results of cross pollinations so far:
I tried pollinating lots of emasculated or bagged Tomatillo flowers with Physalis Pruinosa pollen but so far I didn’t get any fruit to set(sometimes small empty husks will grow; this combination doesn’t seem promising)
The emasculated Physalis Peruviana flower that was pollinated with Pruinosa and Tomatillo Pollen is looking promising and beginning to set fruit so this might mean Peruviana is more open to crossing
I also pollinated some bagged Physalis Virginiana flowers(not emasculated) with Tomatillo Pollen and they are setting fruit but they are likely somewhat self compatible so I might not get hybrid seeds.
I also have other Virginiana flowers that I’ve emasculated and pollinated just yesterday so it will be interesting to see if these also set fruit.
