| Author | P. Miller | |
| Distribution | Throughout most of the Mountains, Piedmont, and Coastal Plain. Absent from the eastern counties, with no records yet east of Hertford and Beaufort counties.
This is a species of the Central and Eastern states, ranging from eastern Canada south to northern FL and NM.
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| Abundance | Fairly common to frequent in the Piedmont and western Coastal Plain, including the Sandhills region. Infrequent in most of the Mountains and the central Coastal Plain. | |
| Habitat | This is a species of open woods, wooded margins, openings in forests, glades, and other places of partial shade. | |
| Phenology | Blooms rather early for a Physalis, from April to May; fruits from June to July. | |
| Identification | This somewhat familiar species grows to about 1.5 feet tall, with some branching. Stem and leaves are rather hairy, with curved hairs, but are not truly hispid with long straight hairs or sticky hairs as found in P. heterophylla and some others. The leaves are 2-3 inches long and half as wide, with distinctly cuneate bases; most other species have more rounded leaf bases. Margins are usually wavy or very shallowly lobed. The yellow, dangling flowers have large brown spots on the inside, near the base of the corolla. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | None, though RAB (1968) considered P. virginiana to consist of two varieties -- the nominate one and var. subglabrata (now named by nearly all references as P. longifolia).
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| Other Common Name(s) | None | |
| State Rank | S4 [S5] | |
| Global Rank | G5 | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | | |
| USACE-emp | | |
