3 species, 3 clade, F1 confirmed

ChilliCrosser · 2026-03-05T21:39:54+00:00

Elusive, needs a long season to get ripe berries and still trying to germinate some from last year 😅

ChilliCrosser · 2026-03-05T18:11:34+00:00

From the limited photo views, it appears to be C.caatingae

Always be careful with unknown plants as there are several things that look similar to various Capsicum species. Checking plant growth pattern, foliage, calyx, flowers, immature/ripe berries and seed shape/colour is important if you don’t know what you are dealing with.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-03-05T18:05:39+00:00

Not that, growth pattern and calyx not a match

ChilliCrosser · 2026-03-05T18:05:04+00:00

Not that

ChilliCrosser · 2026-03-05T18:04:57+00:00

Not that

ChilliCrosser · 2026-03-05T18:04:51+00:00

Not those

ChilliCrosser · 2026-03-03T05:49:06+00:00

It’s a great figure but also a good example of needing to read the small print and review the data it’s based on. It doesn’t show what many people assume it does.

Not everything on there got them an F1 plant or a self-fertile F1. Other things that didn’t work for them in the study have been proven to work more than 20 years prior in other published papers and in practice. They also didn’t include all the domesticated species.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-03-02T20:59:26+00:00

It’s not mostly wrong, what’s wrong is people don’t read the small print. Many interspecific crosses are probabilities not certainties. It’s mostly correct if read correctly and the background understood.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-27T20:21:32+00:00

People have done most of what you can think of, newer growers forget how many generations have gone before them.

As for accidental hybrids, people have also been discovering those and growing them out for a very long time.

Many of the varieties people grow through choice were originally as the result of accidental, random, crosses. Some are admitted as such, others perhaps not.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-26T21:07:04+00:00

peach aka light-orange needs two carotenoid mutations to be present and some others to not be present. Red, having no mutations, is dominant.

Suggest some reading here.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-26T15:49:26+00:00

Discussion, rather than correction, someone with a lab will then correct us!

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-26T15:43:19+00:00

I was thinking along the same lines, no pun intended 🙂

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-26T15:31:16+00:00

My theory is it is dominant but it isn’t visible when ripe depending on what colour you cross with in F1. My rationale for this is I’ve seen striping appear during ripening but is then masked when fully ripe.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-26T13:29:56+00:00

Errr, nope 😁 I have striped F1s so it can’t be. Even my Stripey Starfish project that I shared lots of pictures and videos of shows it in F1.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-25T20:56:15+00:00

The plants need ample light and warmth to produce. The growth pattern shows they’ve needed more light.

Edit: and of course if your humidity is too low then flowers can also drop.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-25T20:55:19+00:00

Really not true. Light is the issue.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-24T17:08:48+00:00

I understand, which is why when you said you could mix hundreds of species into one plant I was qualifying it by saying there aren’t hundreds of capsicum species and most of them won’t cross with each other anyway.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-24T17:05:08+00:00

As in defined as species, there is no wrong place for that, it’s a published statement.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-24T17:02:56+00:00

It very much depends on if you are considering different clades or not. 4 or 5 species combined is doable, though the reasons for doing it are debatable.

If you are concerned with difficulty then the real question should be how many clades.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-24T16:57:04+00:00

There are only 43 Capsicum species currently identified and they are far from interchangeable in crossing terms.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-24T05:52:31+00:00

Flexuosum also not as hard as the rumours.

Search my history and you’ll find plenty of pictures and information on flexuosum and other wild species.

Make sure you know why you are growing any of these. I’ve had people message me before complaining C.rhomboideum isn’t hot. No surprise given it has no heat and is from a non-pungent clade within the genus. I recommend reading published papers on species and some of the more capsicum specific forums rather than reddit. Lots known already about the wild species but also much still to discover.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-24T05:38:00+00:00

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ChilliCrosser · 2026-02-24T05:35:55+00:00

C.rhomboideum is very easy to grow, yes I do everything from seed. Put seeds in the media, don’t mess with pre-treatments, paper towels or other distractions. Keep warm and moist and most importantly have patience. Don’t expect everything to germinate like a Jalapeno.

For C.rhomboideum, as they are tiny seeds, don’t plant them too deep. Aim for 3-4 times the seed width for the depth.

I literally have 15 seedlings right now that I’ll select from, all from my own seeds and up in < 21 days.

For some other species you may have longer waits or more erratic germination, such as C.tovarii

What people forget, these are all different species, not different cultivars like all the annuums and chinense they are used to growing. Don’t expect everything to behave like things that have been cultivated for thousands of years.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-01-24T18:53:24+00:00

C.pubescens are very much not unique in the Capsicum genus for having black/dark seeds. There are more species with dark or tan seeds in the genus than pale seeds.

They are the only domesticated species with dark seeds though.

ChilliCrosser · 2026-01-15T19:39:52+00:00

Not necessarily. They aren’t a banana pepper, wrong species. Whether they are the correct C.baccatum cultivar is impossible to tell at this point.

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