Winter cherry Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun Old World perennial cultivated for its ornamental inflated papery orange-red calyx
    bladder cherry; Physalis alkekengi; Chinese lantern plant.
  2. noun small South American shrub cultivated as a houseplant for its abundant ornamental but poisonous red or yellow cherry-sized fruit
    Solanum pseudocapsicum; Madeira winter cherry; Jerusalem cherry.

WordNet

Definitions
  1. (Bot.), a plant (Physalis Alkekengi) of the Nightshade family, which has, a red berry inclosed in the inflated and persistent calyx. See Alkekengi.

Webster 1913