According to B. Sivinski, Physalis virginiana is a very rare species in NM – having been collected only a couple times in the upper Pecos River basin by Paul Standley in 1908 (all the many other specimens he has seen in NM herbaria labelled as this species were misidentified samples of something more common.) It has not been seen again in that area despite recent efforts to relocate it. Physalis virginiana is a common plant in central and eastern North America, but this more than a century-old collection in the Pecos basin was also the only time the species has been collected in New Mexico. Waterfall (1958) subsequently monographed the United States species in the genus Physalis and found the New Mexico specimen sufficiently distinct to make it a new variety – P. virginiana var. campaniforma.Unfortunately, his description of this new taxon is not especially helpful in distinguishing it from the more widespread variety virginiana. The only salient difference given is a campanulate (bell-shaped) calyx when var. campaniforma is in flower, which is a slight difference from the usually funnelshaped calyx of var. virginiana. Waterfall gives calyx measurements of var. campaniforma as 5 mm at the base and 1.5-2.0 cm at the spreading tips. The digital images (available on the Internet) of Standley’s (type) specimens at the New York and Missouri Botanical Gardens, however, have much smaller calyces that are only 1 cm across the spreading tips, which are similar in size to normal var. virginiana. A duplicate of Standley’s paratype at UNM also has these smaller calyces. A couple years ago Sivinski found two clonal patches of about a dozen stems each of P. virginiana in the Sapello Valley between Las Vegas and Mora in burned ponderosa pine forest. The fresh calyces of these plants were not especially campanulate or broad, but become more so when pressed and dried as a specimen. Therefore, they are somewhat similar to Stanley’s 1908 collections and could be called var. campaniforma. The Internet also now has numerous photos of eastern P. virginiana that show quite a range of variation for the species. B. Sivinski thinks that var. campaniforma is not a worthwhile taxon and should be a synonym of the more common var. virginiana. The species is very rare in NM, but common and quite variable further east.