Capsicum eshbaughii

Capsicum eshbaughii is a wild Bolivian species centred in the Samaipata, Mairana, and wider central Bolivia region, growing as a shrub in the seasonally dry tropical biome. It is part of the group locally known as ulupica, and its very pungent fruit are appreciated in Bolivia as a spice and in pickles. The taxon was first published in 1971 as Capsicum eximium var. tomentosum and later established under the name Capsicum eshbaughii in 2011, honouring William H. Eshbaugh for his work on wild Capsicum taxonomy.

The plant is an erect shrub or subshrub about 1 to 3 m tall, with pale green young stems that become greyish to pale brown with age. Its stems, leaves, and calyces are densely covered in glandular hairs, giving the plant a sticky, softly hairy appearance that is one of its defining traits. The paired leaves are ovate, usually about 4.0 to 6.5 cm long by 2.0 to 4.0 cm wide on the larger leaves, green above with a paler grey-green underside, and carried on densely pubescent petioles.

The flowers are small and stellate, usually white with greenish-yellow spotting and sometimes a faint purple wash, with a cup-shaped calyx carrying 10 slender appendages. The corollas are about 6 to 7 mm long, and the flowers sit on angled pedicels about 8 to 17 mm long at anthesis. These spider-like calyx appendages, together with the dense glandular indumentum, are central to the species' identity.

The fruit are small, globose to subglobose berries about 6 to 8 mm across, maturing from dark green to bright red. They are pungent, thick-walled, and usually contain 8 to 20 yellow to brownish-yellow seeds. The ripe fruit remain attached to a persistent calyx, and the combination of tiny bright red berries, strong heat, sticky hairy growth, and the ulupica cultural association makes Capsicum eshbaughii one of the more distinctive wild Bolivian Capsicum species.