Smooth ground cherry

This perennial herbaceous plant is up to 3½' tall, but it is usually only 1¼–2½' tall. Smooth Ground Cherry branches frequently, creating a bushy appearance. Some of the lower branches may sprawl along the ground, otherwise they are ascending. The stems are light green or light purplish green, more or less angular, and glabrous to sparsely short-pubescent. Leaves occur throughout the length of these stems; they are alternate to nearly opposite. The leaves are up to 5" long and 3" across, although they are usually closer to one-half of this size; they are yellowish green to dark green and broadly lanceolate to oval-ovate in shape. The leaf margins are entire (toothless) and often slightly undulate; sometimes they have 1-2 shallow rounded lobes. The leaf bases are rounded and often oblique (one-half of a leaf base extending lower than the other). The upper leaf surface is glabrous or nearly so. The lower leaf surface is also glabrous or nearly so, except along the undersides of the major veins, where it is short-pubescent. Leaf venation is pinnate with slightly incurved lateral veins. The petioles are ¼–¾" long, light green, and glabrous to sparsely short-pubescent. Solitary drooping flowers develop from the axils of the middle to upper leaves, especially where the stems dichotomously branch. The slender pedicels of these flowers are ¾–1" long, light green to light purplish green, and sparsely short-pubescent.