Species
+

Capsicum pubescens Ruiz & Pav.

Locoto (ES), apple chile, apple chile, chamburoto

Climate known 37 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Capsicum pubescens is a plant of the genus Capsicum (pepper). The species name, pubescens, refers to the hairy leaves of this pepper. The hairiness of the leaves, along with the black seeds, make Capsicum pubescens distinguishable from other Capsicum species. Capsicum pubescens has pungent yellow, orange, red, green or brown fruits.

Text from Wikipedia, “Capsicum pubescens”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Capsicum

Capsicum is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae, native to the Americas, cultivated worldwide for their edible fruit, which are generally known as "peppers" or "capsicum". Chili peppers grow on five species of Capsicum. Sweet or bell peppers and some chili peppers are Capsicum annuum, making it the most cultivated species in the genus.

Text from Wikipedia, “Capsicum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Solanaceae
Described by
Ruiz & Pav.
Native to
Bolivia, Peru
Wild records
126 in range· 82 open

At a glance

Warmest month
19°C
Oct, mean day; nights 10 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1209mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Mar 183 mm (CHELSA)
Light
29–36DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, November to April at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.6 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1209 mm a year, wettest March at 183 mm, driest July at 27 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 5.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Brachistus lanceifolius Miers; Capsicum annuum var. violaceum (Kunth) Alef.; Capsicum annuum var. violaceum Voss; Capsicum lanceifolium (Miers) Kuntze; Capsicum maximowiczii Regel & Rach and 4 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, November to April at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.6 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (912 mm of 1209 mm) falls in November to April. The temperature curve is flat, 2.6 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; with a flat temperature curve there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1209 mm a year, wettest March at 183 mm, driest July at 27 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1209 mm a year at the habitat, 912 mm of it November to April. Wettest month March at 183 mm, driest July at 27 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 704 mm to 2694 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 36 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 23, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 5.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 5.6 °C, the absolute minimum 1.9 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 8.3 °C in July (across the envelope cells 1.9 °C to 17.0 °C), warmest day 19.2 °C in October (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 5.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 61 to 69% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 17 °C in Jul to 19 °C in Oct; mean night from 8 °C in Jul to 11 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 1209 mm of rain a year, most in Mar. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 105 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 1.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 25.4 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°25.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)1.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 29–36RH 61–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 105 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C18 / 14–2618 / 14–2618 / 14–2718 / 14–2718 / 13–2618 / 13–2517 / 12–2518 / 13–2619 / 14–2719 / 14–2719 / 15–2719 / 14–27
Night °C11 / 6–2011 / 6–2111 / 6–2111 / 5–2010 / 4–199 / 2–188 / 2–179 / 3–179 / 4–1710 / 5–1810 / 6–1811 / 6–19
Rain mm178 / 77–429181 / 101–369183 / 115–327118 / 47–23160 / 12–15236 / 7–9927 / 5–8332 / 8–10553 / 17–14789 / 25–225107 / 43–255145 / 79–328
DLI34 / 29–4133 / 29–4032 / 28–3931 / 27–3730 / 24–3529 / 23–3331 / 23–3534 / 27–3836 / 31–4036 / 32–4335 / 31–4534 / 30–44
RH %68 / 62–7369 / 63–7368 / 63–7367 / 62–7365 / 58–7264 / 56–7262 / 55–7261 / 56–7063 / 57–7065 / 59–7065 / 60–7067 / 61–72

Each figure is the median across the 105 grid cells holding the 125 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1943:2030 (-7.175, -78.475). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 1.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 5.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.4 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 105 distinct grid cells holding the 125 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1943:2030 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -7.00_-78.750, lapse-corrected -78 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2672 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeBolivia, Peru· introduced: Jawa, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador
Kew's description“scrambling subshrub or shrub” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-16.397, -67.582 · in the densest population, 68 records (54% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 126 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 82 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1759 km away. 272 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 1 in-range record is placed to worse than 10 km and stays on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 126 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Capsicum pubescensCapsicum pubescensCapsicum pubescensCapsicum pubescensCapsicum pubescensCapsicum pubescensCapsicum pubescensCapsicum pubescens

Photographs: (c) Neptalí Ramírez Marcial, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Maria Luisa Bravo Alarcon, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Capsicum pubescens, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Unilateral Incompatibility in Capsicum (Solanaceae): Occurrence and Taxonomic Distribution
Ahmet Naci Onus, Barbara Pickersgill (2004) · Annals of Botany
Volatile and capsaicinoid composition of ají (Capsicum baccatum) and rocoto (Capsicum pubescens), two Andean species of chile peppers
Hubert Kollmannsberger, Adrián Rodríguez‐Burruezo, Siegfried Nitz, Fernando Nuez (2011) · Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture
DISTRIBUTION AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF POLYPHENOLS IN RIPE AND UNRIPE TREE PEPPER (CAPSICUM PUBESCENS)
Ganiyu Oboh, João Batista Teixeira da Rocha (2007) · Journal of Food Biochemistry
Diffusion of Mesoamerican Food Complex to Southeastern Europe
Jean Andrews (1993) · Geographical Review
Capsicum: historical and botanical perspectives
Saikat Basu, Amit Krishna De (2003)
Phytochemicals in native Peruvian Capsicum pubescens (Rocoto)
Sven W. Meckelmann, Christian Jansen, D. Riegel, Maarten van Zonneveld (2015) · European Food Research and Technology
Combining Ability and Heterosis for Capsaicinoids in Capsicum pubescens
Yayeh Zewdie, Paul W. Bosland, Robert L. Steiner (2001) · HortScience
Inter- and intraspecific differentiation of Capsicum annuum and Capsicum pubescens using ISSR and SSR markers
Patricia Ibarra-Torres, Ernestina Valadez‐Moctezuma, Mario Pérez-Grajales, Jacobo Rodríguez-Campos (2014) · Scientia Horticulturae

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Capsicum 4 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 67 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.