Capsicum frutescens
Tabasco, Malagueta and many bird's eye types. Bushy plants, greenish-white flowers and small, upright pods. Closely related to chinense and crosses with it readily.
Capsicum frutescens is the smallest of the five domesticated species by cultivated variety, and the hardest to pin down. Tabasco is its best-known member, alongside Malagueta and several of the peppers sold as bird's eye.
Telling it from chinense and annuum
These three are close relatives and the boundaries between them are genuinely blurred. Frutescens and chinense interbreed readily enough that some botanists have argued they should be treated as one species.
The useful signs:
- Greenish-white flowers, usually one or two at a node, held upright rather than hanging.
- Small pods pointing upwards, often passing through a yellow or orange stage as they ripen.
- Bushy, many-branched plants that keep producing over a long period rather than setting one flush.
None of these settles it alone. Pod position in particular is a weak test, because plenty of annuum varieties also hold their fruit upright.
"Bird's eye" is a name, not a species. The Index carries African Bird's Eye as frutescens and Bird's Eye Chilli as annuum, and shops and seed catalogues use the name more loosely still. Where a variety's history is unclear, the honest answer is that the species is unconfirmed, not a guess from the pod.
Growing
Treat frutescens as you would chinense: slow to start, wants warmth, needs a long season. The upright pods ripen in succession rather than all at once, so pick regularly and the plant keeps setting. A Tabasco will often carry green, yellow and red fruit at the same time.
Compare Capsicum chinense, its closest relative, and C. annuum for the other common mix-up.
