Capsicum longidentatum

Capsicum longidentatum is a wild Brazilian species formally published in 2011 and native to the Caatinga region, with its documented native range running from Pernambuco into northern Minas Gerais. It grows as a scrambling shrub or small tree in the seasonally dry tropical biome, and the original species paper records it from central Bahia and Pernambuco on granitic hillsides in open dry Caatinga vegetation and in gallery forests along small rivers. Phylogenetic work has since treated it as an isolated lineage forming its own monotypic Longidentatum clade within Capsicum.

The plant is a slender to semi-scandent shrub about 1.5 to 4 m tall with few grey, fragile, striate stems. Older stems become glabrous, while young stems are densely covered in branched hairs. The leaves are green, usually paired but sometimes solitary, ovate, membranous, and slightly discoloured, commonly about 3.5 to 5.5 cm long by 1.5 to 2.5 cm wide, with abundant branched hairs on both surfaces, especially underneath. One of the defining traits of the species is its unusual pubescence, because it carries a mixture of bifurcate, trifurcate, and dendritic hairs on the young stems, leaves, pedicels, and calyces, giving it a distinctly shaggy appearance.

Its flowers are borne in fascicles of 2 to 4 on straight, pendent pedicels about 8 mm to 2 cm long. The buds are whitish green, and the corolla is stellate, about 6 to 7 mm long, pure white on the outside and white inside with two pale yellow to greenish-yellow spots at the base of each lobe and in the throat. The calyx is one of the main characters that defines the species, with five conspicuous linear teeth about 5 to 8.5 mm long. The species epithet longidentatum refers directly to these long calyx teeth, which the original description states are the longest yet observed in Capsicum.

The fruit are small, pendent, globose berries that are slightly flattened at the apex, about 8 to 9.5 mm long and 7 to 8.5 mm wide. They begin green and mature yellowish-green, with a persistent fruiting calyx. The pericarp is described as sweet to the taste and lacking stone cells, and broader phylogenetic work identifies Capsicum longidentatum as one of the reversals to the non-pungent state within the genus. Seeds are brownish tan, usually 5 to 15 per fruit, and measure about 3 to 3.7 mm long. Together with its yellowish-green ripe fruit, very long calyx teeth, and distinctive branched hair covering, Capsicum longidentatum has one of the most recognisable identities among the wild Caatinga capsicums.