Twins ??

AJ Drew · Jul 17, 2015

Saw this the other day. Have seen it before but not often. Two peppers growing from a single stem, conjoined at the base where the stem is. Its never all pods on a single plant. Just an odd one here and there, so I know it is not genetic. Any clue what causes it?

Have also seen the pepper inside a pepper thing. First thought was a seed started growing, but that makes no sense because it is a pepper rather than a plant inside a pepper.

Love the weird

cruzzfish · Jul 17, 2015

ajdrew said:
Saw this the other day. Have seen it before but not often. Two peppers growing from a single stem, conjoined at the base where the stem is. Its never all pods on a single plant. Just an odd one here and there, so I know it is not genetic. Any clue what causes it?

Have also seen the pepper inside a pepper thing. First thought was a seed started growing, but that makes no sense because it is a pepper rather than a plant inside a pepper.

Love the weird

Probably just a mistake when growing the flowers. My scotch bonnet does it sometimes, but I've never actually seen it set fruit.

geeme · Jul 17, 2015

To a degree you can compare what you know about humans to plants. How do identical twins happen in humans? Cell division, my man, cell division.

Peter S · Jul 17, 2015

I had one do that this year too.

poypoyking · Jul 17, 2015

Much more common in tomatoes than peppers, but all the flowering plants in the solanaceae family do it to some extent (peppers, tomatillos, tomatoes, eggplant, etc). When referring to tomatoes it is usually called a megablossom.

AJ Drew · Jul 18, 2015

Peter S, that looks so damned cool. Turn it upside down and it is a heart.

Justaguy · Jul 18, 2015

I have had a good many. I even had a triplet. Picture here somewhere.
On your other comment, I never thought about the babies inside like that. Since a seed couldn't just become a pod I assume they are late twins that couldn't split?

AJ Drew · Jul 18, 2015

Justaguy, oh damn. Considering the area where the seeds form is kind of like the womb of a human female, does that mean that children can be born with their twin inside their womb?

ChileHeadCliff · Jul 19, 2015

Justaguy said:
I have had a good many. I even had a triplet. Picture here somewhere.
On your other comment, I never thought about the babies inside like that. Since a seed couldn't just become a pod I assume they are late twins that couldn't split?

I've had this happen so many times with bell peppers at restaurants I had started ignoring it. Lol. The green more than the red. Seen 2 growing inside a red once but I still have no clue what causes it.