Hi all,
A friend of mine from Brazil has posted some pictures and asked if I knew which variety the plant belongs to. I've already discussed this in the #fatalii.net IRC channel, but noone knew about it.
The special thing about it is that the fruits start with a dark chocolate colour and remain like that until the fruits ripen. The flowers are white with purple stains. Reportedly, it tastes like "the peppers from the north of Brazil", which generally means C. chinense. The first guess was that it is an annuum, but because of the comment about the taste and because one of the pictures show two pods in one node, we think it's a chinense. A very special one though. It looks like a cross, but it is stabilized, my friend said she had several plants that looked the same.
Note the two pods in one node:
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e281/neyde43/criaseblusas113.jpg)
Purple stained white flowers (stems seem to be purple as well):
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e281/neyde43/pimentas009.jpg)
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e281/neyde43/pimentas010.jpg)
The pistils seem to be purple:
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e281/neyde43/pimentas012.jpg)
Early fruit is already chocolate in colour:
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e281/neyde43/pimentas008.jpg)
Closer picture of the fruits. They seem to be a bit purplish, maybe just caused by reflected light, though:
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e281/neyde43/pimentasdirio003.jpg)
Does anyone have a clue what this variety might be? I'm going to get some seeds soon, I have to check it out with my own eyes ;-)
Sorry for the quality of the pics.
Fruit looks more like dark purple to me too. The purple in the flowers makes me lean toward C. annuum. It is not unknown for them to have more than one pod per node. It does have an interesting shape.
Hmm... I didn't know annuums could have more than one fruit per node! Well, I guess I won't know the actual species, until I grow my own ;-)
Thanks for your comments.
Judging by the flower, it looks like a chinense... Haven't ever seen purple-flowered ones, but I guess there's always the first time for everything. ;)
Yes, chinense was my guess and Fatalii also said that. Especially because of her description of the taste, "like the chiles from the North of Brazil", which generally means chinense...
What about a cross (stabilized) between annuum and chinense?
Yes, I also think there's a good chance of being a cross of a chinense with a purple annuum.
But we should still keep an eye on it, it could also be a cross with some kind of unknown wild species... you never know...
A crossing with a wild variety may be unlikely (still, Brazil is still a bit of a mystery...), but I guess annuums don't have a privilege of having the only purple shades in capsicums... Actually, I grew a very purple-leaved South American c.chinense. Never got a chance to see the fruit, though. After all, genetically chinenses are about the similar plant as annuum and frutescens...
The seeds of this unknown purple variety that I got a few weeks ago, are already sprouting!
Their tiny little stems are already purple, even before they started to show their cotyledons!
We made a small voting round on our Brazilian Chile forum and the selected name was "Pimenta-da-Neyde" (literally Neyde's chile). Neyde is the lady that had the plant and distributed the seeds to many of us.
Let's see if now, growing it ourselves, we can finally identify this plant (at least the species).
:-D