Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum

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Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum is a wild chili pepper from the southern United States, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. It’s also called chiltepín, Indian pepper, grove pepper, chiltepe, chile tepín, and sometimes bird pepper.

What it is
- A tiny wild pepper plant that is likely the ancestor of the cultivated Capsicum annuum.
- A perennial shrub, usually about 1 meter tall, sometimes almost 3 meters. In warm, frost-free areas it can live 35–50 years.
- The peppers are very small, red to orange-red, about 0.8 cm in diameter. Some fruits can be rounder when fresh.

How hot it is
- Very hot: about 20,000–140,000 Scoville heat units.
- The hottest fruit tends to be green fruit about 40 days after fruit set.
- Heat can vary a lot with rainfall: drought can lower heat, normal rains can raise it.
- Green, fresh, dried-with-seeds, and dried-without-seeds versions can differ in heat, generally hottest when fresh green, then red, then dried.

What it looks like and where it grows
- Native to the Sonoran-Arizonan desert and found in Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and Colombia.
- Prefers well-drained soils (silty or sandy loams) and substantial rainfall (roughly 800–2,000 mm per year in some places).
- Can grow in disturbed areas with moisture and good soil; sometimes needs partial shade from a nurse plant in very sunny areas.

How it’s used and how it compares to similar peppers
- About 50 tons are harvested each year in Mexico, mainly in Sonora.
- In Mexico, its heat is called arrebatado (rapid or violent) but is not always long-lasting.
- It’s often confused with the similar-sized Pequin pepper. Tepin fruits are round to oval; Pequin fruits are oval with a point. Tepin is usually sun-dried; Pequin is often smoke-dried, which also helps tell them apart. Pequin is milder (about 30,000–50,000 SHU) but longer-lasting in heat.

Conservation and research
- A large population is protected as a genetic reserve in a 2,500-acre Wild Chile Botanical Area in the Coronado National Forest, Arizona.

In short, capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum is a tiny, extremely hot wild pepper that likely gave rise to many cultivated peppers and remains an important plant in its native deserts.