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13: Spices

Capsicum pubescens Ruiz & Pavón

SOLANACEAE

Capsicum guatemalense Bitter.

Apple chilli, rocoto, chilli manzana (En). Indonesia: cabe gondol, cabe bendot, cabe Dieng (Java).

Capsicum pubescens is only known in cultivation and is most common in the Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, where it is known as rocoto or locoto. It is now also grown in the highlands of Costa Rica, Guatemala and southern Mexico, but less abundantly than in South America. In Indonesia it is cultivated in West and Central Java at higher altitudes.

The fruits are used as a spice like those of other Capsicum species and are said to be mildly to strongly pungent.

Herb or climbing shrub up to 3 m tall. Stem striate, branched, with purple nodes. Leaves alternate, ovate, rugose, margin entire, sometimes ciliate. Flowers borne singly and axillary; calyx up to 6-lobed, lobes up to 1 mm long; corolla campanulate to rotate, blue or purple, with a white eye; stigma green. Fruit a berry, pendent to erect, yellow to red, orange or brown, very variable in shape, size and pungency. In South America Capsicum pubescens grows at 1500-3300 m altitude. In Indonesia it is cultivated at altitudes above 1400 m, in scattered small plots between tea and cinchona plantations. It was the most common pepper of the Incas and it can be distinguished from other cultivated Capsicum species by its flowers being blue or purple instead of white or greenish, and its seeds being black in contrast to the pale yellow, smoother seeds of the other species. In many parts of the lowland tropics the fruit set of Capsicum pubescens is not satisfactory.

[34] Grubben, G. & Anggoro, H.P., 1996. New Capsicum species found in Indonesia. Prosea Newsletter No 17. Prosea Network Office, Bogor, Indonesia. p. 1.
[39] Heiser, C.B. & Smith, P.G., 1953. The cultivated Capsicum peppers. Economic Botany 7: 214 227.
[45] Huxley, A., Griffiths, M. & Levy, M. (Editors), 1992. The new Royal Horticultural Society dictionary of gardening. 4 volumes. The Macmillan Press, London, United Kingdom.
[60] Mansfeld, R., 1986. Verzeichnis landwirtschaftlicher und gärtnerischer Kulturpflanzen (ohne Zierpflanzen) [Register of agricultural and horticultural plants in cultivation (without ornamentals)]. Schultze-Motel, J. et al., editors 2nd edition, 4 volumes. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany. 1998 pp.
[71] Pickersgill, B., 1989. Genetic resources of Capsicum for tropical regions. In: AVRDC: Tomato and pepper production in the tropics. Proceedings of the international symposium on integrated management practices, March 21 26, 1988. Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC), Shanhua, Tainan, Taiwan. pp. 2 9.
[75] Purseglove, J.W., Brown, E.G., Green, C.L. & Robbins, S.R.J., 1981. Spices. 2 volumes. Longman, Harlow, Essex, United Kingdom. 813 pp.
[77] Rehm, S., 1994. Multilingual dictionary of agronomic plants. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, the Netherlands. 286 pp.

M. Brink

Brink, M., 1999. Capsicum pubescens Ruiz & Pavón. In: de Guzman, C.C. and Siemonsma, J.S. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 13: Spices. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea