Plant 30-60 cm tall, pubescent-villous, often densely so. Leaves 4.5-14 x 3.5-10.5 cm, ovate to ovate-cordate, sinuate to repand or toothed, pubescent-vinous. Calyx 7-9 mm long, ± campanulate, 1/2-cleft, 35-40 mm long and inflated in fruit; lobes triangular-acuminate. Corolla yellow, purple blotched, sparse pubescent without; lobes shortly ciliate. Anthers 2.3-3 mm long, narrow oblong; filaments 3-4 mm long, glabrous. Berry 13 mm broad. globose, orange. Seeds 2.4 mm long, subreniform, minutely reticulate, brown.

Fl. Per.: May-October.

Lectotype: Hort. Uppsala ex Peru. Hb. Linn. 247/7 (LINN).

Distribution: Tropical America, cultivated or naturalised elsewhere.

The ‘cape gooseberry’ is both cultivated and found as an escape up to c. 1830 m. The yellow berries are edible and can be used for making jams etc.