There’s a very good Korean film named A Tale Of Two Sisters which I highly recommend. Strangely, considering the amount of striking imagery in the film, once scene which stuck in my mind was that of a young girl eating the fruit of Physalis, or Chinese Lantern Plant.
It seems, if the fruits are left undisturbed for long enough, they dry out and the ‘lanterns’ can be removed and the insides eaten. I read that they are sweet. I have never tasted them myself.
We have a single lantern plant, small and seemingly vulnerable, and it has brazenly shone one brilliant red lantern for several weeks now. It was quite beautiful, especially against the brown and greens of the garden. I looked forward to seeing what happened to the fruit as the plant ‘died off’ for the winter.
I’ll not know this year, for today that single fruit – which had survived several windstorms and the recent monsoonal rains – was the target of what I assume to be a curious squirrel or chipmunk:
< Evidence
You can see, in the leftmost picture, the reddish stalk from which hung the lantern, and the remains abandoned on the ground below. The detail on the right shows how the exterior was torn away (and not eaten; a few centimeters away the removed piece was found) and the fruit inside half nibbled away.
The plant is invasive and we expect to put a few more in next year. Likely it was this first rodent's taste of physalis. Assuming it tasted good, I doubt it will be his last.