The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Gomphocarpus physocarpus
Also called Balloon Cottonbush, Balloon Plant, Bladderbush, Cottonbush, Hairy Balls, Narrow Leaf Cottonbush, Swanplant
Balloon cotton bush is a fast-growing African undershrub, usually grown as an annual or short-lived perennial, valued for its inflated seed pods and as a host plant for monarch-type butterflies. Give it full sun and well-drained soil, and handle it carefully because its milky sap is toxic.
Gomphocarpus physocarpus is a species of flowering plant in the Milkweed subfamily, Asclepiadoideae, and Dogbane Family Apocynaceae. It is commonly known as hairy balls, balloonplant, balloon cotton-bush, bishop's balls, nailhead, or swan plant. The plant is native to southeast Africa, but it has been widely naturalised as it is often used as an ornamental plant.
The sap produced by the plants is toxic, and if ingested all parts can potentially affect the heart, breathing, central nervous system and the stomach. It may also cause eye injuries. In 2017 a Northland, New Zealand man was reported to have become temporarily blind after getting sap in his eyes, with one eye still affected nine months later.
The plant's stamens are fused to the head of the style and all the pollen of each stamen is within two pollinia. The pouch-like structure formed by the petals that surrounds the reproductive organs encourages pollinia to stick to the legs or proboscis of pollinating insects. As a result, the pollen packets are carried from plant to plant. The species is self-incompatible, and these specialised structures support this reproduction.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gomphocarpus physocarpus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
