Looking to ID a mis-labeled plant

[pepperhead212]

My cousin bought a plant a while back, and it is growing well, but it is not what they said it was - a Pineapple Tomato. It is obviously not any kind of tomato! I told here that, since it doesn't look at all familiar to me, it is probably not edible! lol I told her that it is probably some flowering plant, and it finally flowered, and she sent me a photo - still doesn't ring a bell. I told her I'd post it, and see if anyone recognizes it.

She said it was a "Bonnie" plant, and all of them looked the same, and I told her that they had one large batch of mis-labeled plants!
Unknown plant, with an inconspicuous flower. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[applestar]

Doesn’t it look sort of solanacea-ish ?

It’s not like a ground cherry?

[TomatoNut95]

Tomatillo? Eggplant?

[pepperhead212]

The ground cherries I've seen had more serrated leaves. Definitely not an eggplant, regular or Turkish. And not a tomatillo, either.

[pepperhead212]

Somebody else pointed out that the thing I called a flower looked more like a fruit, and it made me think about something that would explain this - there is a variety of tomatillos that is a pineapple flavored one! That thing that I said was a flower might be a husk tomato - it's blurred, but it could be it. Regular tomatillo leaves are more pointed, but also get holes in the leaves, just like this has. The leaves look more serrated in the photos I've looked at, but they are dark green, like that. Maybe my cousin thought tomatillo said tomato!

[pepperhead212]

This is really funny - just now, while I was posting this, I got a text from her saying "that thing looks like it's full of air!" That definitely makes it a pineapple tomatillo. I figured she probably mis-read it.

[pepperhead212]

I called my cousin and told her what that was, and she looked at the tag, and said that it said tomato, not tomatillo! At least she knows now, though she has no idea what to use them in. Some of the things I would use it in she wouldn't make!

[!potatoes!]

that's definitely a ground cherry. bonnie sells the variety 'pineapple'. I grow five species in this genus, so please forgive if I geek out too much! what you've got a has way more ground cherry growth habit than true tomatillo. a little searching just now showed me that people do call the 'pineapple' variety of ground cherry (pruinosa species) 'pineapple tomatillo' though they are different species (P. ixocarpa/pennsylvanica)...looking at you, gurney's. bonnie may too sometimes but their website lists it as a ground cherry. definitely may have been labeled wrong when she got it. leaf serrations aren't a good indicator of species in this genus as there can be a fair bit of variation even within species.

ground cherry fruit won't get bigger than an inch across. tomatillos are always (unless seriously stunted!) bigger.

[pepperhead212]

@!potatoes! That makes sense, as when I looked into pineapple "tomatillos" they were described as much smaller, and didn't sound like something I would be using - more of a sweet, though there may be savory dishes using them somewhere. I told my cousin that she'll have to find recipes online - it's not something I have used!

[applestar]

You can always make a jam/jelly. It’s mentioned in one of Laura Ingalls Wilder books as something they made. (I made a tiny batch one year — really yum) I think I also mentioned freezing the de-husked full ripe ones and just taking them out of the freezer to scatter in salad.

I need to try growing them again, but I‘vehad serious trouble with them getting infested by tortoise beetles.


...!potatoes! — I love it when you geek out and share your expertise.....

[!potatoes!]

pepperhead, when they're dead ripe I just eat them out of hand fresh. they're really good dried, too. the seeds give them just a little crispiness in the center.

thanks for the reassurance, applestar!

the pest that gets them bad where I am is some sort of peripatetic slightly fuzzy black worm (probably lepidoptera larvae, maybe beetle, haven't totally id'd it) that climbs up the plant and drills a hole in each fruit, hollows them out and wanders off. still not sure the best way to deal with them.