Capsicum piuranum

Capsicum piuranum is a wild Peruvian species formally described in 2019 and accepted in current Capsicum treatments. It is endemic to a restricted part of northern Peru in the Department of Piura, where the type material was collected in 2011. The species name refers directly to that Piura distribution.

The plant is a scandent, densely branched shrub usually about 2.0 to 2.5 m tall, sometimes reaching 3.0 m. Young stems are green, shiny, fragile, glabrous and striate, while older bark becomes green to dark brown. The foliage is markedly anisophyllous, with paired leaves of different size and shape. The larger leaves are elliptic and about 12.0 to 17.5 cm long by 2.5 to 4.5 cm wide, dark green and shiny above and lighter green beneath, while the smaller leaves are ovate to elliptic and much shorter.

Its flowers are solitary or in fascicles of three on pendent, slightly curved pedicels about 2.0 to 2.5 cm long. The buds are yellow or pale yellow, and the corolla is tubular-campanulate, entirely yellow, and about 14.5 to 17 mm long. One of the defining traits of the species is its purple to greenish-purple calyx with five equal, erect, subulate appendages, a combination that separates it from its closest lookalike, Capsicum caballeroi.

The fruit are small, globose berries about 9 mm to 1.2 cm in diameter, slightly flattened at the apex, and pendent on elongated stalks. They are green or whitish when immature and mature orange to red, with smooth skin and no pungency. Each fruit contains about 50 to 80 dark brown seeds. In habitat, the species grows in montane misty rainforest at about 2300 to 2860 m, usually along forest margins and near streams in cool areas with rich soils.