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.
Phyllanthus acidus
Also called Otaheite Gooseberry, Indian Gooseberry, Malay Gooseberry, Star Gooseberry, Tahitian Gooseberry, Gooseberry Tree, Goose Berry
Phyllanthus acidus is a shrub-to-small-tree grown for its tart, edible, pale yellow berries, which are often pickled or eaten raw. It thrives in warm, humid tropical conditions with consistently moist soil.
Phyllanthus acidus, commonly known as star gooseberry, Otaheite gooseberry, or Malay gooseberry, is a tree in the family Phyllanthaceae that bears small edible berries.
The star gooseberry prefers moist soil. It can be cultivated in a variety of ways—budding, cutting and air-layering—in addition to the usual seed growth. The tree is cultivated for its ornamental value, but also for food and medicinal purposes. While it produces some fruit throughout the year, it is mainly harvested in January except in South India, where it bears crops in April–May and again in August–September. As the fruit does not soften when ripe, it is harvested when the fruit begins to drop.
P. acidus contains 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, caffeic acid, adenosine, kaempferol and hypogallic acid.
Jamaican gooseberry tree · Carry me seed · Emblic · Floating Spurge · Niruri · Chamber bitter
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Phyllanthus acidus 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.
