Lebanese Marble

Lebanese Marble appears to be a renamed or relabelled seed-trade version of Marbles, the dwarf ornamental pepper developed at Oregon State University. The strongest live sources describe a compact Capsicum annuum with upright marble-sized fruit, usually on a plant about 30.5 to 50.0 cm tall, bred specifically for ornamental display but still edible. The original Marbles cultivar was developed at Corvallis, Oregon, from a cross of Nosegay × Fiery Festival, and the 1988 cultivar release paper describes it as a dwarf ornamental pepper from the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station.

The most interesting thing about Lebanese Marble is that the online identity does not line up neatly. Some current sellers call it a traditional Lebanese chilli for Mediterranean cooking and list the origin as Lebanon, while other exact-name sellers say it was developed by Oregon State University in the USA. That conflict looks too strong to ignore. Based on the traceable breeding history, the Oregon State link is much more solid than the Lebanon claim, so this name seems to be drifting in the seed trade rather than pointing to a genuinely separate old Lebanese landrace.

Morphology is much more consistent than the origin story. Live sources describe small round upright fruit, compact habit, heavy ornamental value, and a plant small enough to suit pots, patio growing, and even bonchi or chilli bonsai use. One exact-name source gives the plant at about 0.5 m tall, while Marbles listings commonly describe 12 to 18 inch plants, which is basically the same compact growth habit once converted.

Heat is another messy point. The strongest exact Lebanese Marble source gives about 50K SHU and a 30K to 50K band, but other sellers reduce it to vague mild or medium wording. So the pepper is clearly edible and ornamental, but the live web does not treat its heat in a perfectly consistent way.

Culturally, this sits much more in the ornamental pepper and collector-gardener scene than in a clearly documented traditional food culture. The strongest exact-name sources focus on appearance, multicolour fruit display, compact growth, and decorative value first, with culinary use as secondary.