Lots of peppers that I have seen called ornamental are edible. I am wondering, is there a definition for the term or does it just mean attractive? It seems like there is no set rule.
There is no set list of plants that are ornamental, as it is determined purely by the individual's aesthetic tastes. But generally, if one is growing a plant "as an ornamental", then you value its look over its taste/uses/etc....
Usually Ornamentals have no taste,they are just hot...
I add them as a filler to powder blends for a Little more heat at best.
No hot pepper is Toxic as far as I know.
Beware though,If a grower sells a Pepper as Ornamental,they can use stuff while growing them that isn't cool to eat-causes Cancer or?
Seeds are cool to grow next year,but don't eat pods from a Nursery plant,just to be safe.
My outlaws have had 2 ornamental pepper plants growing for years, dont know why but the damn things produce fruit all year round ...year after year??
I was always led to believe the ornamental peppers were bred/grown purely for aesthetics suited for pots to be placed on a balcony or porch etc
It is a weird term. Ornamental banana trees do not grow banana. Wife wants one. I am like what the heck is the point. She is like it is ornamental. Other ornamental plants grow berry that are poison. Peppers, completely different story. BTW: Lots of folk think an ornamental pepper is one that grows fruit upright. Those are the ones we put out front because they do show the fruit / color better.
In plant breeding if we accidentally make something that has kind of crap yield or maybe tastes bad, but looks really cool, we say "well at least it has potential as an ornamental" and then usually forget about it. A colleague recently released an ornamental soybean, no idea who would ever buy that! Ornamental sweet potatoes are quite popular in planted beds, but no one will ever dig them up to find out if theres a potato under there or not.
When it comes to peppers, the ornamental always taste bad. If they didn't, they would just be marketed as peppers.
I've started with ornamentals and have tried over 20 varieties so far. They're all edible, but also look good. Mostly its just the heat, but there are some with nice flavor and just two I can recall that tasted bad.