Rare species in Bolivia - eximium and cardanesii-like

Nigel

Nigel

I was asked about rare species in Bolivia that may also add to the confusion surrounding C.eximium, C.cardanesii, Rocopicas and Rocoto crosses. 
 
The first is Capsicum eshbaughii. This is a redescription of a previously named sub-species of C.eximium, C.eximium tomentosum. The flower looks like C.eximium, but the stem/calyx is covered in fine, matted hairs. If anyone has a plant of C.eximium that is hairy like this, please, please let me know.
 

 
 
The second one is Capsicum caballeroi. This one is extremely similar to C.cardanesii, as you can see from the picture below. 
 
 
 
I would be surprised if C.eshbaughii was NOT in a growers hands right now, labelled as C.eximium. So, one of my goals this year is to collect as many differently sourced C.eximiums as I can find, just in case.
 
True C.cardanesii is very rare in growers hands, it appears. Almost all of the ones I`ve seen labeled C.cardanesii are really C.eximium.  CGN20497 is the only legit C.cardanesii I know of. There will be others flying around as well. Jon Fieldler had one, I believe. A couple of others have a few seeds and I hope they will grow them out in 2014. 
 
My Eximium are growing still and nowhere near flowering, I'll let you know tho. I'm getting the one from Semillas. My order must got confiscated by customs and he's sending my seeds again... so another couple of weeks.

I'm having a super hard time getting the CGN 21502 to germinate tho. So I only have the 19198 and 24332 seedlings.

-Walt
 
Those two are quite interesting, I wonder if we have any Peruvian or Bolivian friends here on THP, Or maybe some one with relatives down that way?
I wonder if the South American version of the USDA Seed Bank would have seeds of them and if it would be possible to get seeds from them?
 
wildseed57 said:
Those two are quite interesting, I wonder if we have any Peruvian or Bolivian friends here on THP, Or maybe some one with relatives down that way?
I wonder if the South American version of the USDA Seed Bank would have seeds of them and if it would be possible to get seeds from them?
Click to expand...
This is my opinion,it's not worth much either,just letting it out. We all would love to grow these rare ones,but sneaking stuff is not going to help

a.)SA to release this stuff.
b.)Keeping the lines pure. Most if any of the folks willing to send this stuff will be able to properly I.D. them. Hell, a lot of botanists can't. In my nightmares,I see these undomesticated varieties ending up like the superhot chinense! There are a ton of folks interested in preserving these wilds,some are spending major $ and going to great lengths to pass the word on,and possibly give us the chance to build seed stock for them. It is frustrating to sit around and wait,but there are better options than sneaking stuff. We already have seen the issues with buforum,parvifolium,mirabile,shottianum,etc.

My opinions carry no weight. I'm just a backyarder who loves these.
 
I agree with John. Keeping the lines pure should be of paramount importance at this stage, as who knows what we have. Not the majority of botanists, I think. 
 
This kind of conundrum has always fascinated me, in a scientific sense. I have looked for orchids in Venezuela, Tarantulas in Venezuela, Tarantulas all over the southwest etc etc. I`d love to look for Capsicums in Bolivia. Now where did I leave those lottery tickets???
 
I have friends in Argentina, one is in this forum and the others I only communicate thru a Spanish pepper forum.

There's a guy from Brazil too and he also grows wild capsicums but he hasn't been very active on the forum he also has sent seeds to other forum members.

Only he might know what's up with the laws and maybe info or whatever on certain species.

I'll try to contact him.

-Walt
 
Nigel said:
I agree with John. Keeping the lines pure should be of paramount importance at this stage, as who knows what we have. Not the majority of botanists, I think. 
 
This kind of conundrum has always fascinated me, in a scientific sense. I have looked for orchids in Venezuela, Tarantulas in Venezuela, Tarantulas all over the southwest etc etc. I`d love to look for Capsicums in Bolivia. Now where did I leave those lottery tickets???
Click to expand...
There will be better documentation of Bolivian species in the next few years,I can assure you of that. Looking at the big picture and the evolution of capsicum,that is a short time,in standards of today's society,not acceptable!!!! haha I have a huge interest in the Bolivian species like yourself. Would be great to even see them in their natural environment.

The best way to pass time is to document and photograph the stuff we have already. There is a lot of flip-flopping and relisting of the stuff that is in our forums already,it can only help. It's good to see documentation from all climates,soils,light,etc. Those factors have a big effect on corolla color and that seems to be a huge issue with the folks I.D.'ing these in the field.
 
I'm not one to say sneeking is ok, but there is nothing wrong about asking and going by the rules. We are not here to do Black OPs into the Jungles to retreave endangered species and then smuggle them past inspectors.
But finding some one that has pappers that allow them to collect seeds and then asking about them to see if they can be imported to the US is not sneeking.
At the rate that the jungle is being destroyed, many species may have already been lost, unless they were collected legally by plant collectors hired by the government seed banks.
 
My experience with importing orchids, reptiles and arthropods from Peru and Ecuador is that the biggest issue is getting them into the USA rather than out of the South American countries. Except Brazil, which is essentially a closed country as far as flora and fauna exports goes. 
 
It is relatively straightforward for natives of those countries to get export documentation, including CITES appendix 2 materials. In our case, seeds are easier than plants or animals. For Bolivia, it is reasonably simple to get the export certification. The problem is that as John says, almost nobody can tell the flower of C.eximium from C.eshbaughii, or even C.eximium from C.cardanesii. 
 
The next issue is one of conservation. Is it 100% right to provide in situ conservation for any organism? That means all the conservation studies and attempts are done where the organism is found in the wild, even if it`s in the middle of a new housing development. The other idea is that ex situ conservation can also be a successful way to approach the problem. In this case the organism is collected from as many sites as possible in small numbers, then taken to another place (like the USA), grown, propagated, bred or whatever, to obtains new populations with enough genetic diversity to form self-sustaining populations. 
 
There is a big argument which is the way to go. In situ is obviously the ideal situation, but many times that isn`t possible. 
 
A good example of ex situ conservation is the Californian Condor, where every single bird was removed from the wild and bred in captivity for 20 years, before a re-release program was initiated.
 
Thanks for the run down Nigel, I agree that is very hard to tell the difference between C. eximium and C. cardenasii at times you have to really look close to tell the difference.
I was reading a little about C. caballeroi at wildchilli.EU they were discussing the the differences between the three species, they also talked about using the wild species to breed with some of the cultivated varieties, they had lots of good photo's of the crosses that they made.
I find that a lot of the wild species are very interesting and unusual to grow even if the pepper pods are very small.  I can just see C. caballeroi as a small tree like plant with about a thousand tiny pods all over it as they had said that it can grow from 1 to 7 meters high that would make a very large plant.
 
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