An Ancient Groundcherry That Proves Nightshades Are Older Than We Think


Among the world’s plants, the nightshade family is one of most prolific and most useful. Among its 2,500 species are some of the humanity’s favorite foods (potatoes, peppers, eggplants, tomatoes) and distractions (petunias, tobacco).

In a new paper in Science, though, a team of scientists reports on the discovery of two small fossils of ancient nightshades of the physalis genus, which includes tomatillos, ground cherries, and husk tomatoes.

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