Habaneros with hearts!?

pitviper

pitviper

Hi All!  First time post, but I've been lurking for quite some time!  I typically grow a variety of peppers to dry and use throughout the year – lots of Bhuts, Habs, and Cayenne/Thai Dragons. 
 
I noticed some really tiny brown spots on the membrane around the seed on some of the habs (few different types/plants too) – It doesn't look like any of the mold pics that I've seen online, any ideas?  It rubs right off, and the specs don’t seem to move at all lol.
 
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Also a few of the plants that I ended up which were supposed to be red savinas produce large orange habs (very hot) with what appears to be a heart in the center – never seen this before.  It’s similar to what you would see in the center of an onion I guess.
 
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Thanks for looking!!
 
 
 
The hearts are peppers growing within peppers. The brown spots can be cut away if you do not want to eat those parts. They won't hurt if you don't. The brown parts seem to be related to irregular watering. Brown dots in the center of seeds indicate bad seeds, don't keep them.
 
Thanks for the welcomes!
 
Pepper within a pepper, huh, that never crossed my mind!  Makes sense now – I tried eating one and it wasn’t hot at all (but the membrane it was attached to was of course).
 
The brown spots don’t bother me – they’re on the best part of the pepper so I’ve been eating them.  The plants got regular water over the summer months (every few days), but I haven’t been watering them at all of late.  I’m noticing the spots more in peppers that have ripened over the last few weeks.  I did scrape some of the spots off of a few that I dehydrated just in case.  Here’s some of this year’s crop – yellow and orange Bhuts, Scotch Bonnet and Orange habs, and Thai dragons (all mixed):
 
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i have always thought that the brown dot things were seeds that have not formed. i normally get them at the start and toward the end of my season. nice set of jars you have there, look very tasty.
 
"Pepper within pepper syndrome" is very common in bell peppers. When I worked in restaurants I cut tons of bell peppers everyday, and 30 to 40 percent had them inside.
 
Eat 'em!
 
:welcome:  :welcome:  :welcome:
 
Awesome, thanks guys!  I think I’ll dry another batch or 2 knowing that those little specs are harmless.  Been a bizarre growing season for me in CT – I’m not used to having fruit this late into October, and there are literally hundreds of green ghost pods on the plants still.
 
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