@JesseI you mentioned that you crossed Physalis angulata with Physalis Pruinosa and that you got a fruit with only a few viable seeds. On which species as female parent did the fruit set?
Maybe the pollen of Physalis Pruinosa isn’t able to fertilize Tomatillo flwoers because the Pruinosa flowers/ pollen grains are much smaller
That was angulata. I have been unable to get any fruit the other way around. After the the discussion in physallis identification thread, the species in question probably is grisea and not pruinoisa, even though pruinoisa is often used when selling seeds. I don’t know about the pollen size, but would think that ground cherries (so grisea, but often labelled as pruinosa) are just too far away to produce viable offspring.
I tried pollinating lots of Tomatillo flowers(some emasculated, some bagged) with Physalis Pruinosa flowers and I didn’t get any fruit set. Physalis Virginiana(female) x Physalis Peruviana(male) also doesn’t seem to work. The only combinations where I am getting fruit to set so far is Physalis Peruviana(female) x Tomatillos & Physalis Pruinosa(male) and Physalis Virginiana(female) x Tomatillos(male). I can also confirm that Physalis Virginiana is self incompatible because I am not getting any fruit(bees don’t seem to visit the flowers at all unlike with Tomatillos)
Here is one of the Physalis Virginiana flowers I pollinated with Tomatillo flowers
and here is the Physalis Peruviana flower(It was emasculated) that I pollinated with Physalis Pruinosa and Tomatillo flowers
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Recently I’ve observed that the Physalis longifolia x tomatillo hybrids (either F2 of BC1 to longifolia) are able to set fruit with longifolia pollen. They don’t appear as ready to accept tomatillo pollen, but my friend has fruit set on siblings of these exposed to tomatillo pollen. 3 of the 7 seedlings are fruiting in my garden with longifolia pollen exposure. The fruits so far are all bigger than longifolia, from a bit bigger all the way up to larger than even large peruviana selections. The next generation should be very promising to keep selecting for a balance of wild/domestic traits, because up to now domestic traits are coming through pretty strong like big robust, continuously flowering plants with decent size fruits. I may have 1-2 fruits forming of these crossed to Peruviana pollen as well.
The only other physalis cross I did was a mutual cross of longifolia and peruviana. I didn’t emasculate either one, and peruviana can self so it might be a mixed bag if at all successful. But the longifolia was the only one I saw flowering that day and I bagged it midday so that one may be a success, fingers crossed. I would’ve had more opportunities to cross these two, but a groundhog chomped my longifolia plants down with only a single berry that I crossed to peruviana remaining. I divided and potted a division of the longifolia seedling that seems to easily form fruit with Peruviana pollen, so my plan is to put it indoors under lights in the beginning of September to see if I can trick it into flowering in the fall to keep crossing with Peruviana. Not sure if that will work or if it will still try to go dormant even with a 16 hour light cycle inside.
First fruit, it’s from the seedling with the largest fruit as well. Hand crossed with longifolia pollen.
Nice. But shouldn’t you leave the fruit to ripen until the husk dries out or the fruit swells to completely fill out the husk? In my experience it takes multiple months from pollination for a tomatillo fruit to fully form and ripen
Yes you absolutely should leave the fruit on the plant for as long as possible, especially with distant hybrids which tend suffer from undeveloped embryos. This one easily came off when I was trying to take a photo of it on the branch.
Found a hybrid fruit(I mark every flower I cross pollinate) today that fell to the ground(Tomatillo x Physalis Pruinosa). This is unexpected because this one set fruit and I didn’t notice it. (Most had no fruit set).
It was mostly completely empty except for just 4 seeds. Hopefully they will be viable. The fruit ripened quite quickly, taking only about a month(Maybe because of the cross pollination)
I will be sowing them now in pots and hopefully get interspecific hybrids. They probably won’t manage to have ripe fruit before the first frost but I have a grow light so I will keep them inside in autumn
2 weeks and none of the seeds germinated in very warm(good) conditions. I also planted some Physalis Pruinosa seeds nearby to see if there is a problem with the environement and the Physalis Pruinosa seeds germinated just fine.
Because I won’t be pollinating any more flowers(if I pollinate a flower now it won’t have time to ripen until the first frost) I’ll share the hybridization results so far:
Physalis Ixocarpa(f) x Physalis Pruinosa - almost no fruit set, no viable seeds
Physalis Virginiana(f) x Physalis Ixocarpa - every flower(roughly 7) set fruit, haven’t ripened yet
Physalis Virginiana(f) x Physalis Peruviana - one out of 5 pollinated flowers set fruit, hasn’t ripened yet
Physalis Peruviana(f) x Physalis Ixocarpa - out of 2 pollinated flowers both set fruit, haven’t ripened yet
Physalis Peruviana(f) x Physalis Virginiana - out of 2 pollinated flowers both set fruit, haven’t ripened yet
Physalis Peruviana(f) x Physalis Pruinosa - the one flower I pollinated didn’t set fruit
combinations I didn’t try:
every combination with Physalis Pruinosa as female becase the flowers are very small
Physalis Virginiana(f) x Physalis Pruinosa
@JesseI @Ascentropic
At least p.prunoisa aka p.grisea should have time to ripen. Mine tend to ripen 1,5 months from pollination, even in a month if they are smaller. As with most fruits, they don’t need to be fully ripe to save seeds from. The seeds ripen first. 5-6 weeks should be just fine. I still make some crosses and hopefully there isn’t early frost. Generally it’s after mid september, but can be at the turn of the month also.
Only made p.angulata x p.grisea as interspecific crosses. So far 3/3 have set fruit, but probably it will be just the same story as previously with no viable seeds. This way it seems to set at least so maybe there is a change.
Probably better to let them dry out first. They might need some rest period before they can “activate”. Also not sure if there could be some compounds that hinder germination. Like eggplants supposed to have some germination hindering compounds that need to wear off before the seeds can germinate.
Is p. angulata self compatible? If so it would be interesting to maybe cross it to Tomatillo to introduce self compatibility. My Tomatillos flowered throughout late may-june but most plants started setting fruit in late June-July because of insufficient pollination in may-june. Now I have the first ripe fruits but there are few seeds and some are not fully developed because of poor pollination. With self incompatibility you could get a much earlier tomatillo that will produce much more viable seeds. Sadly I’m not growing Physalis Angulata this year but for now I hope that I will get viable seeds from the P Peruviana x Tomatillo fruits
With the longifolia-tomatillo crosses maybe half made fruit (4), those were exposed to longifolia pollen earlier in the season before the self sown tomatillos started flowering. The tomatillo pollen the past several weeks has not been able to pollenize them at all that I can see. That supports the idea that these are BC1 seedlings and not F2. No suckers have come up that I can see, the one that i thought might be I suspect is actually a stunted seedling. Here are photos of the 4 seedlings fruit, from biggest to smallest (counterclockwise from the top left). The seed in them should be BC2 to longifolia.
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First Physalis Peruviana fruits are beginning to ripen. This variety(Schönbrunner Gold, bred in Austria) seems to have fruits that ripen a lot quicker than the fruits of the colombian variety I grew last year from store bought fruit. I really did not expect them to ripen this early. One of the fruits that is beginning to ripen is a hybrid fruit that I emasculated and pollinated with Tomatillo pollen so hopefully I will get many seeds
Harvested the hybrid fruit and a selfed fruit. It had lots of immature, tiny, underdevelopped seeds while the seeds inside the selfed fruit were completely normal. The embryo probably aborted but fertilization was succesful
underdeveloped seeds inside fruit
hybrid seeds(left) next to selfed seeds(right)
All fruits ripened. tiny, immature seeds in each cross except for one full sized seed in the Virginiana x Peruviana(f) cross although it might have been a stray grain of pollen that somehow managed to get there. I will still try to germinate that seed.
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The season hasn’t ended yet and I tried pollinating a Tomatillo flower with Physalis longifolia pollen(I know I called it Physalis virginiana up until now because the seed seller had it listed as Virginiana but it is most likely Physalis longifolia as the accession is from Denver). I used cut-style pollination and fruit is setting!
Up until now Tomatillo as the female parent hasnt worked in any cross but with cut-style pollination it seems to work(because this way interspecific pollen can probably bypass the denfenses against them on the stigma)
I have high confidence that this combination will result in viable seeds because according to the new 2026 physalis study physalis longifolia is very closely related to Tomatillo and they are both diploid for sure.
I also emailed Natures Pathfinders and they told me they used a “secret method” for their Tomatillo x longifolia hybrid - now I know that it is most likely cut-style pollination.
I know that the fruits on that plant wont mature before the first frost, which will come in roughly 25 days here but I will move the plant under a grow light so that the fruits can finish ripening
According to the study Physalis longifolia and Physalis philadelphica are very closely related.
Physalis peruviana is also very closely related to Physalis cinearescens, which is a rhizomatous perennial so this cross could have a lot of potential especially because Physalis Peruviana is very open to pollen from other species and has by far the highest quality fruit out of the genus.
If the Physalis Peruviana x Physalis longifolia hybrid seed germinates it would be an extremely distant cross. It might also be triploid. If that is the case I will double the chromosomes of the hybrid to restore fertility
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