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(Last Modified On 5/15/2013)
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(Last Modified On 5/15/2013)
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Species
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Capsicum chinense Jacq.
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PlaceOfPublication
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Hort. Bot. Vindob. 3: 38, tab. 67. 1776.
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Description
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Small, short lived shrub to 1.5 m tall, glabrate or puberulent. Flowers mostly 2-5 per node; pedicels recurving and becoming thick in fruit; calyx with a pronounced constriction between the base of the calyx and pedicel, teeth mostly absent; corolla dull white or somewhat greenish; the lobes spreading to recurved; anthers blue to violet, rarely yellow; the stigma not exserted from the anthers more than 1 mm. Fruit pendant, persistent, variously shaped, but often with longitudinal furrows, the fruit wall fleshy, ripening brown, red, orange, pink, yellow or almost white; seeds cream to yellow.
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Habit
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shrub
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Distribution
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Capsicum chinense is cultivated from the southern United States to Chile.
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Note
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Negro populations in the Caribbean area commonly grow it for use in soups and stews. In some strains from the Antilles or the Portobelo region of Panama, the fruit resembles a miniature, shiny plastic replica of the fruit of Hura crepitans. This species has a much thicker, more fleshy fruit-wall than other species and is the only pepper in Panama which sometimes ripens with a decidedly pink hue. The distinctions between C. frutescens and C. chinense are not always clear, but most Panamanian material is identifiable by the con- stricted calyx and other characters mentioned above.
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Specimen
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LOS SANTOS: Near headwaters of Rio Pedregal, 25 mi. SW of Tonosi, 2,500-3,000 ft, cloud forest and native clearing, Lewis et al. 2925 (MO).
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