Smooth Ground Cherry

This beauty is growing in one of my neglected compost piles. It has been turned to face the camera so you can get a "bee's eye view". It naturally hangs downward under the foliage.... easy to miss. It is a member of the Nightshade family as are Tomatoes. The fruit is small but not unlike the tomato and it is edible when ripe.... Before the fruit ripens it is poisonous and so is the rest of the plant. I am not actually able to identify this plant to a specific Ground Cherry ... it is a toss up between Smooth or Clammy Ground Cherry. I did find some writings that said there is often disagreements about identifying Ground Cherries. I am going with  Smooth because of the smoothness of the stem. The  Smooth Ground Cherry can be processed to be used as a hallucination .... In Louisiana you can only grow this plant for decorative purposes other wise it is illegal to grow. The fruit ripens in a paper husk like the ornamental plant Chinese Lanterns or the edible plant Tomatillos. The fruit can be made into jam or jelly quite nicely because of the high pectin content. It is suppose to taste a bit like strawberry-pineapple with a tomato finish.  It is late in the season so I am not sure that this plant will produce a fruit .... but I will be watching for the appearing of the paper husks.

Where I found it : on top of my neglected compost pile