By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star on May 25, 2004
The Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of the Common Exotics!) plant for June is a hot item to start the summer. It is the little native pepper, chile pequín (Capsicum annuum).
Long familiar to Texas gardeners and Tex-Mex gourmets, this plant is known by several other common names, including chilipitín, chilipiquín, chilitepín, bush redpepper, and bird pepper.
An early name was chiltepín. By whatever name it was called, we can assume that this chile pepper was grown in pioneer gardens of Texas for medicinal and culinary uses.
Reportedly, Thomas Jefferson cultivated “chiltepín” from seeds acquired from Texas in 1813.
More recently, chile pequín has been grown in Texas gardens as an ornamental as well as for a source of picante seasoning.
In this area, chile pequín grows into a few-foot-high shrub with small dark-green leaves.
All during the growing season it puts on small white flowers which produce numerous berries less than an inch long.
The oval to oblong fruit is green at first, then turns orange and bright-red.
As Jill Nokes says in her book, “Chile pequín is very attractive when covered with red berries.” A friend of mine believes that potted chile pequín plants covered with red and green fruit plants from exotic gene would make ideal Christmas presents. However, it is difficult for her to find berry-covered chile pequín in local nurseries at that time of year.
Another friend makes chile pequín jelly for Christmas presents, using ripe chiles for red coloring and unripened ones for green coloring.
Chile pequín is fairly drought tolerant, but during droughts it will partly defoliate.
A number of birds are attracted to the ripe red fruit.
Unfortunately, in some localities deer will browse the bushes of chile pequín.
In the Hill Country climate chile pequín dies back in the winter, but will come back every spring.
When we moved back to Texas several years ago, we brought a chile pequín that had been planted by birds in our New Orleans yard. The plant now lives in our greenhouse and is about 12 feet high and still growing.
Offspring of this chile pequín have a difficult time surviving our Hill Country winters, and most do not re-sprout in the spring.
This proves a point.
Even within the same species, pools may not grow as well as plants native to this part of Texas. It would be more appropriate for me to plant a native strain of chile pequín.
The Boerne Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas provides free planting and care instructions for chile pequín at the nurseries participating in Operation NICE!: Hill Country African Violets and Nursery, Maldonado Landscape and Nursery, and Barkley’s Nursery Center.
Chiltepín (Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum) is the Texas state native pepper, officially designated by the 75th Legislature in 1997. The official state pepper, designated two years earlier, is another variety of the same species, jalapeño (C. annuum var. annuum).
The species Capsicum annuum includes a large number of varieties, including cultivars such as the bell peppers.
Chile pequín is native to the southern US from Arizona to Florida and occurs throughout tropical America.
In Texas it lives in southern Central and South Texas, aсcording to the new “Atlas of Vascular Plants of Texas.”
Some other sources say that the natural range of the chile pequín also includes the Edwards Plateau.
I wonder where it grows in the Edwards Plateau.
Has anyone seen a wild chile pequín in the Hill Country?
