Blue Lantern Flower

Seeds: 100  / Botanical name: Nicandra physaloides

Hundreds of bell-shaped flowers and pretty fruit calyxes in autumn

The easy-care, annual Blue Lantern Plant is exceptionally fast-growing, displaying its magnificent blooms after just a few weeks and reaching a height of up to two meters in the garden or in containers. From June to September, it produces hundreds of bell-shaped, two- to four-centimeter-wide, light blue flowers on a white background. Later, balloon-shaped, parchment-like calyxes resembling those of Cape gooseberries develop, enclosing the fruit and seeds for self-seeding the following year.

Natural habitat: The Lantern Plant is originally native to the Andes Mountains of South America, from Peru to northern Argentina. Today, it is also widespread throughout the Mediterranean region.