MullacaPhysalis angulata

Did you know?

• Every mullaca berry grows inside its own husk. The calyx, the green cup at the base of the flower, keeps growing after the flower fades and becomes a papery bag around the ripening fruit^{[3, 5, 6]}.

• The genus name Physalis comes from the Greek physa, "bladder" or "bubble", after that inflated husk^[9].

• Mullaca has famous relatives: the golden cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana), native to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, and the tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica)^{[6, 7, 8]}.

• It is a native wildflower of the southern United States too, where it is known as cutleaf groundcherry^{[1, 3, 4]}.

• The ripe berry is juicy and sweet-tart, and is often compared to a cherry tomato^{[3, 5]}.

• Its fruit juice contains about 24.5 mg of vitamin C per 100 ml^{[3, 5]}.

Origins and history

Mullaca is a fast-growing, branching annual, usually under a meter (3 ft) tall, with small, pale yellow flowers^{[3, 5]}. Each flower leaves behind a round berry, 1 to 2 cm across, sealed inside its husk^{[3, 5]}. Carl Linnaeus described the species in 1753 in Species Plantarum^{[1, 2]}. Its home is the warm Americas, and from there it has spread to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, from Africa and Asia to Australia and the Pacific islands; it reached the Philippines in Spanish colonial times^{[1, 3, 5]}. It is a common weed of cornfields, riverbanks and grasslands, from sea level to about 2,400 m (7,900 ft)^[3].

A plant that travels so widely collects many names, and most of them describe the fruit. In the Peruvian Amazon it is mullaca or bolsa mullaca^[12]. English speakers call it cutleaf groundcherry, angular winter cherry or balloon cherry^{[3, 5, 10]}. In Brazil it is camapu, joá-de-capote or balãozinho^[10], in Indonesia ciplukan^[5], and in Chinese ku zhi^{[5, 10]}. The genus name makes the same point in Greek: Physalis means a bladder or bubble^[9].

The fruit is the part most people know. Once ripe, it is eaten fresh, cooked or made into jam, and the young leaves are eaten as a green^{[3, 5]}. In Mexico the fruit goes into sauces with onion and chili peppers^[12]. Only the ripe berry goes into the pot: the papery husk is peeled away first^{[3, 4, 5]}. The leaves and roots have their own tradition, steeped or simmered in water as a tea or infusion^{[3, 5]}.

Traditional uses

Clinical studies of mullaca in people are still few, but its traditional use is rich and widespread: wherever it grows, people have eaten its berries and brewed its leaves.

• A wild fruit

  The ripe berries are eaten fresh, cooked or as jam across the plant's range.^{[3, 5]}

• A leafy green

  The young leaves are eaten as a vegetable, raw in salads or cooked as a potherb.^{[3, 5]}

• A traditional leaf tea

  The leaves, and sometimes the roots or the whole plant, are steeped or simmered in water and drunk as a tea.^{[3, 5]}

• Digestive comfort

  In folk tradition across Central and South America, mullaca leaf has been taken for the stomach. Mullaca supports digestive comfort.*^{[3, 5]}

• Urinary tract health

  The leaf tea is also a traditional drink for the urinary tract, including among mestizo communities of the Peruvian Amazon. Mullaca helps promote urinary tract health.*^{[4, 5, 12]}

Plant compounds

Mullaca is best known to chemists for its physalins, a family of seco-steroids named after the genus. Physalins B, D, F and G have been purified from the plant, and many more have been described^{[3, 5, 11]}. It also contains withanolides, another family of plant steroids, among them withangulatin A and withanolide T^{[3, 5]}. The ripe fruit provides vitamin C^{[3, 5]}.