Hi folks! I'm newly returned to posting online after a long hiatus when the kids were little and I had zero time. I've been growing and collecting a variety of heirloom vegetables for quite a while, and peppers are a big part of that.
I try new pepper varieties I'm interested every year and of course sometimes seeds are crossed or just the wrong thing. If they're obviously wrong I usually pull up the plants at the first sign and count it as a loss, as I grow between 30-80 varieties a year and just don't have the room to try to stabilize a hybrid. This year I had one that was just a weird plant and decided to leave it growing to see what it was.
It was supposed to be a new chinense seasoning variety, from a grower who said they had grown it out for the past several years after collecting the peppers on a trip to Trinidad. The other two plants look exactly what she said they would be, as are their peppers. The unusual plant stayed short and bushy, flowered 2 months after anything else I grew and has yet to ripen a fruit.
It flowers in clusters of 6 or more, and the flowers appear to contain a small fruit with a distended pistil. The petals fall away and the fruit swells to about marble sized, but have none have turned color yet.
I contacted the source and sent pictures, they said they didn't grow anything like it last year and don't have anything like it growing this year. If it's a cross, it's a weird one, or it's some stray seed from their collection that they just don't recognize. I have bagged peppers on the plant, so if it tastes like anything interesting or useful I'll see if the seeds come true next year.
I know it's unlikely to be reliabily identifiable, but I was curious if anyone here had seen a pepper like it before. I'm waiting for it to be ripe, so I don't know what it tastes like yet.
Flower form
Fruit Form
I try new pepper varieties I'm interested every year and of course sometimes seeds are crossed or just the wrong thing. If they're obviously wrong I usually pull up the plants at the first sign and count it as a loss, as I grow between 30-80 varieties a year and just don't have the room to try to stabilize a hybrid. This year I had one that was just a weird plant and decided to leave it growing to see what it was.
It was supposed to be a new chinense seasoning variety, from a grower who said they had grown it out for the past several years after collecting the peppers on a trip to Trinidad. The other two plants look exactly what she said they would be, as are their peppers. The unusual plant stayed short and bushy, flowered 2 months after anything else I grew and has yet to ripen a fruit.
It flowers in clusters of 6 or more, and the flowers appear to contain a small fruit with a distended pistil. The petals fall away and the fruit swells to about marble sized, but have none have turned color yet.
I contacted the source and sent pictures, they said they didn't grow anything like it last year and don't have anything like it growing this year. If it's a cross, it's a weird one, or it's some stray seed from their collection that they just don't recognize. I have bagged peppers on the plant, so if it tastes like anything interesting or useful I'll see if the seeds come true next year.
I know it's unlikely to be reliabily identifiable, but I was curious if anyone here had seen a pepper like it before. I'm waiting for it to be ripe, so I don't know what it tastes like yet.
Flower form
Fruit Form
