Annual Meetings
J. Worth Estes 2008 Prize
Jonathan Simon the winner of the 2008 J. Worth Estes prize received a print from a rare facsimile edition of the 6th Century Vienna Dioscorides (original in the Austrian National Library in Vienna)
PHYSALIS (Winter-Cherry)
The colorful illustration of the “Physalis alkekengi” with its stalks bent more
decoratively than usual and with its lampion shaped calyxes which lead to the name “Chinese Lanterns” is also one of the most striking plants of this manuscript. It has received numerous popular names in the course of its long history as an ornamental and medicinal plant, names which testify to the wide dispersal area of the physalis plant: related species are still to be found today not only in Europe but also in South Africa and especially South America.
The peculiar form of the at first green, then yellow, and finally vermilion red
calyx, which encloses the berries like a bubble, or a vescia, led to the Greek designation, “physalis”, Latin “vescaria…” The Punic name “kakabum”…is supposed to have entered Africa and Spain with the Arabs during the Middle Ages and to have spread further from there. This is developed to the form “alkekengi”, hardly recognizable today.
Formerly the plant was interpreted as a bladder and kidney purgative, as shown in the name “bladder herb”, thus according to the old theory of signatures, because of the shape of its fruit calyx…H. Bock described its effect also as a remedy for sores and boils.
From the berries pressed along with wine grapes, a wine was made against kidney
stones and gravel. Later also brandy from winter cherry became rather popular.