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Heirlooms

Palgrave

Palgrave

It is a hot day outside today and it reminded me I wanted to ask TPH a question:
 
Do peppers, like some other fruits and vegetables, have heirloom varieties? I would think some of them (chocolate habanero, other dark skinned peppers) would be but I'm not too sure.
 
Do any of you know of/grow any heirloom peppers?
 
 
 
The "Heirloom" designation typically means over 50 years old.  So there would definitely be quite a few peppers that fit the bill.
 
Tomatoes are my other passion next to peppers and there are a lot of tomatoes that get the heirloom title slapped on to them without fitting the criteria.  It seems a lot of people interchange open pollinated (non-hybrid) with heirloom.  While all Heirlooms are open pollinated not all open pollinated varieties are heirloom.
 
Does anyone know when some of these varieties were first bred/discovered?  Some peppers have been around a long time even if we didn't discover/market them until recently (Bhut Jolokia, Scotch Bonnet, Jalapeno, Habanero, etc)
 
Heirlooms include any distinct variety that has grown true in a particular location for a long period of time.  So there are lots of heirlooms, such as NuMex Big Jim, Poblanos, Jalapenos, Habaneros, Fataliis, Anaheim's, Fish, Scotch Bonnet, etc.  While some of these may have started as hybrids, once they are stablized and can be called a distinct type and grown for successive generations, they are no longer considered a hybrid but become an heirloom variety.
 
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