Chinese Lantern

The fruit of this species is edible and is used medicinally as a febrifuge.

The ‘chinese lantern plant’ is usually found in damp shady places from 1219-1800 m in Kashmir. Also sparingly cultivated for its edible fruit, which is also a diuretic and useful for gout. Spreads by suckers.

Herbs perennial. Stems 40-80 cm tall, slightly woody at base, little branched, nodes sometimes inflated, mostly pubescent. Petiole 1-3 cm; leaf blade narrowly to broadly ovate, 5-15 × 2-8 cm, glabrescent or pubescent, base oblique, cuneate, margin entire or coarsely dentate, sometimes with salient, unequal deltate lobes, apex acuminate. Pedicel 0.6-1.6 cm, glabrescent, puberulent or densely and persistently villous. Calyx broadly campanulate, ca. 6 mm, densely pubescent. Corolla white, mostly with a greenish or yellowish eye, rotate or campanulate, 1.5-2 cm in diam., lobed. Stamens yellow. Fruiting pedicel 2-3 cm; fruiting calyx orange or red, ovate, rounded, 10-ribbed, 2.5-4 × 2-3.5 cm, subleathery, invaginated at base, glabrescent or persistent villous. Berry shiny, orange-red, globose, 1-1.5 cm in diam. Seeds pale yellow, reniform, ca. 2 mm in diam.

Plant up to 60 cm tall. subglabrous. Leaves 7-11 x 4-8.2 cm, ovate to ovate-cordate. sinuate to subentire, cuneate. Petiole up to 40 mm long. Flowers white. Calyx ± 6 mm long, orange-red. 25-60 mm in fruit. globose-conoid; lobes triangular. acute or acuminate. Corolla 11-15 mm long, campanulate. Stamens and style included. Berry c. 15 mm broad, globose, orange. Seeds 2.2 mm long, subreniform, compressed, minutely reticulate, brownish-yellow.

Distribution: Europe (C. & S.), Iran, C. Asia.

Fl. Per.: June-July.

Asia, Europe; cultivated and naturalized elsewhere