Capsicum frutescens is the species behind the tabasco pepper, the one that goes into Tabasco sauce, along with Brazil’s malagueta and the Philippines’ siling labuyo. It’s a close cousin of Capsicum chinense, and on the plant you’ll usually know it by its small pods pointing straight up.
What is Capsicum frutescens?
Capsicum is the chili genus, and five of its species were domesticated. Besides frutescens, they’re pubescens, chinense, baccatum and annuum. If you want a refresher on how the two-part names work, see our genus vs. species explainer.
Frutescens sits in the same primary gene pool as annuum and chinense, the group of peppers that cross with one another most readily. The 2022 monograph of the genus in PhytoKeys places all three in its Annuum clade, and of those three, chinense is the one frutescens resembles most closely.
How do you tell a Capsicum frutescens?
Want a quick first check? Look at the pods. On most frutescens plants they stand upright on stiff stalks, pointing at the sky, while the domesticated chinense peppers usually let theirs hang. But it’s a habit rather than a rule, and you’ll find some frutescens plants with hanging fruit.
The flowers narrow it down. Frutescens produces two to four dull white or greenish-white flowers at each node, which separates it from annuum’s single white flower. But chinense flowers the same way, so for that pair you need the calyx, the little green cup where the pod meets its stem.
| Species | Corolla | Flowers at each node | Ring at the calyx base |
|---|---|---|---|
| annuum | White | 1, rarely 2 | Absent |
| chinense | Dull white to greenish-white | 2 to 4 | Present |
| frutescens | Dull white to greenish-white | 2 to 4 | Absent |
Chinense pods have a pinched ring around the base of the calyx. Frutescens pods don’t, and the monograph points to that, and to the veins on the flower’s calyx, as the features that separate the two. Without fruit to check, the same monograph admits flowering plants can be hard to tell apart.
Are frutescens and chinense really separate species?
Most botanists today say yes, but the question has been argued both ways. The two belong to the same gene complex, and crosses between them produce fertile hybrids. A 2017 Brazilian study measured 72.5% pollen viability in its hybrids, and it notes that for some authors the two are a single species.
Others proposed frutescens as chinense’s wild ancestor. A 2014 comparison of the two rejected that and concluded they’re distinct species, which is how the 2022 monograph treats them as well.
Which peppers are Capsicum frutescens?
Five of the more than 175 peppers in our pepper list are frutescens, each shown here with its Scoville range:
- Tabasco: 30,000 to 50,000 SHU
- Malagueta: 50,000 to 100,000 SHU
- Peri-peri: 50,000 to 100,000 SHU
- Siling labuyo: 80,000 to 100,000 SHU
- Wiri wiri: 100,000 to 350,000 SHU
Notice who you won’t find there? The Thai pepper often gets listed as a frutescens, but our catalog files it under annuum. The confusion is real: a 2008 Kasetsart University paper on Thai chilies says the short ones may be either species, and “bird’s eye” gets used for peppers from both. The African bird’s eye behind peri-peri, for its part, is a frutescens.
How hot does Capsicum frutescens get?
Our five frutescens peppers run from 30,000 Scoville heat units, the tabasco’s floor, up to 350,000, the wiri wiri’s ceiling. The tabasco matches a cayenne (30,000 to 50,000 SHU); malagueta, peri-peri and siling labuyo top out at 100,000; and the wiri wiri climbs into habanero territory (100,000 to 350,000 SHU). And next to a jalapeño? Frutescens runs roughly 4 to 140 times the heat.
They don’t reach the extreme heights of Capsicum chinense chilies, which go all the way to 3,000,000 in our catalog. But you also don’t see them near as mild as some of the hot peppers in the Capsicum annuum species. Even the tabasco, the mildest of the five, starts where cayenne does.
What does Capsicum frutescens taste like?
Three of the five carry a sweet tag in our catalog. Past that, you’ll see them split up: the tabasco and wiri wiri lean fruity, the malagueta and wiri wiri tangy, the tabasco and peri-peri smoky, and the siling labuyo is listed as neutral.
Chances are you’ve already tasted it in a bottle. McIlhenny’s Tabasco sauce starts as a fermented mash of ripe red tabasco peppers, and our Tabasco Original Red review covers how it tastes today. Peri-peri, the African bird’s eye pepper, is the chili behind the Portuguese-African sauce of the same name.
Where does Capsicum frutescens come from?
Nobody knows for sure. A 2010 review of Amazonian crop origins suggests Amazonia may be the center but names Mesoamerica as a candidate too. And it notes that no wild population of frutescens has turned up in either region.
Kew’s Plants of the World Online gives its native range as southern Mexico to tropical America. From there it spread across the tropics of Africa, Asia and the Pacific, often, as the monograph puts it, more as a weed than as a cultivated plant.
In the United States, it’s best known from Louisiana, where the tabasco has been grown commercially for Tabasco sauce. The company now sources peppers from farms in Latin America and Africa as well.
Linnaeus named the species in 1753, and if you know any Latin, you may spot the clue in the name. Frutescens means shrubby, from the Latin frutex, a shrub, and he set it against annuum: the shrubby perennial alongside the herbaceous annual.
How do you grow Capsicum frutescens?
Want to grow your own? Think warm, sunny and patient. Frutescens is a tropical pepper that takes its time.
- Sow your seeds indoors two to three months ahead of the last frost. Seed sellers give 8 to 12 weeks for the tabasco.
- Keep the seed tray warm, 70 to 85°F, and be patient, since tabasco seed may sprout in a week or take as long as four.
- Move your plants outside after the last frost, when nights stay at 50 to 55°F or warmer, and give them full sun.
- Give it room to bush out. The monograph puts the plant at 1 to 5 feet tall, occasionally up to about 8, and seed companies list the tabasco at 2 to 4 feet.
- Expect a long season. Seed sellers give 80 to 90 days from transplant for the tabasco and 100 to 110 for the malagueta, and a 1970 Auburn University report called the tabasco late maturing.
- Short on space? The tabasco and peri-peri are both compact enough for container gardening, and a potted plant can come indoors before frost.
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Related reading
- Capsicum annuum: jalapeños, bells, cayennes and the Thai pepper, the biggest group on our list.
- Capsicum baccatum: most of Peru’s aji peppers, with spots on their petals.
- Capsicum chinense: frutescens’s closest relative, and home to the superhots.
- Capsicum pubescens: rocoto and manzano, the black-seeded highland peppers.
- Genus vs. species: why every pepper carries a two-part scientific name.
Photo by: woodleywonderworks CC 2.0