Capsicum benoistii

Capsicum benoistii is a wild Ecuadorian species formally published in 2019 after having earlier been recognised by Armando T. Hunziker, who had annotated the name on the Benoist 4204 specimen collected at Baños in 1931. The species was named in honour of Raymond Benoist, the French botanist connected to the type collection. It is endemic to a restricted part of central-southern Ecuador, specifically Tungurahua and Loja, where it grows in thickets within montane forest between 1500 and 2600 m elevation.

The plant is described as a sparsely branched shrub with striate young stems that are light brown and older bark that becomes dark brown. Its sympodial units are geminate and strongly anisophyllous, giving the paired leaves a noticeably uneven appearance. The larger leaves are ovate to elliptic and usually about 8.5 to 12.0 cm long by 3.0 to 6.0 cm wide, while the smaller leaves are about 2.5 to 6.0 cm long by 2.0 to 4.0 cm wide. The foliage is membranous and discolorous, with a darker green upper surface and a lighter green underside, and may be glabrous or lightly clothed in simple antrorse hairs, especially along the main veins.

Its flowers are one of its most distinctive features. They are borne in fascicles of 3 to 6 on pendent, filiform pedicels about 13 to 20 mm long. The calyx is small, cup-shaped and thick, about 2.0 to 2.5 mm long, with five erect subulate appendages about 2.5 to 3.5 mm long. The corolla is deeply stellate and about 12 to 13 mm long, with a short 3 mm tube and long, narrow lobes about 9 mm long, creating a much more sharply lobed flower than is seen in many other wild Capsicum species. The species is especially notable for its heterostylous flowers, a rare character in the genus, and this combination of short pendent pedicels, strongly stellate corollas, and heterostyly is central to its identity.

Capsicum benoistii flowers from March to May and is regarded as a narrowly distributed wild taxon of conservation concern. Its restricted Ecuadorian range, specialised montane forest habitat, and striking floral morphology make it one of the more unusual and botanically distinctive wild Capsicum species described from the tropical Andes.