Chilli Plant/Tomato Plant Cross?

darlochileman · July 17, 2007

Hi Guys,

Ive grown hundreds of different varieties of Chilli plants over the years but Ive never come across anything as weird as some plants I grown out this year.

The seed was taken from a Jamacian Red Hot plant (a Chinense) which grew in the middle of my Tomato plants last year. Although Tomato & Chillis are from the same botanical family (Solanaceae or nightshade family) Ive never heard of them crossing before.

The plants do however share some of the charactertics of the parent plants having 'Tomato like' leaves but 'chilli plant like' flowers & pods. All very weird. I have 4 plants all of which are growing like wild fire and are loaded with pods. Here are some pictures:

The Plant (some specimens are nearly 3ft high)

The Flowers (note chinense like multiple nodes but white flowers - tomato plants normally have yellow flowers)

The pods (these are tepin size small spherical pods some of which are starting to ripen to black!)

Has anyone else ever seen/heard of anything like this?

Mark

johno · July 17, 2007

Very interesting. Please keep us posted on the progress.

veratrine · July 17, 2007

I don't know that I'd eat that. Have a look at some pics of black nightshade and see if it looks like what you have.

bcday · July 17, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by veratrine

I don't know that I'd eat that.

I was thinking the same thing. Just because the pepper grew in the middle of your tomato plants doesn't necessarily mean that that's what it got crossed with.

Look around and you'll likely see lots of solanaceous weeds and ornamental plants, some of them poisonous. All it takes is a bee to visit one of them first and there's your wide cross with the pepper.

feldon30 · July 17, 2007

I'd make sure your life insurance is paid up.

orflo · July 17, 2007

It's a strange weird plant, the berries do look like the black nightshade (I grow a non-poisonous, sweet variety of it:susse schwarzbeere, comes from Germany), but the flowers look like solanum phureja or solanum andigena, and the leaves look like a cross between jaltomato and the black nightshade, did you ever grow solanum burbankii?Normally pepers will never cross outside the capsicum family, could there have been some weed seeds in the sowing soil?
Frank

svalli · July 17, 2007

I have all sorts of solanums growing wild on our yard, garden and flower beds. I have seen such flowers, berries and leaves, but not exactly all of them same in one plant as in the picture. Still I think that this is one of the wild solanum species and not a chiltomato.

I grew couple of years ago a similar looking plant called Garden Huckleberry, but I did not like the taste and since they looked so much like the wild ones growing as weeds in the garden, I decided not to eat them since I could not be sure, which of the berries could be poisonous.

July 17, 2007	#1
darlochileman Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: UK Posts: 37	Chilli Plant/Tomato Plant Cross? Hi Guys, Ive grown hundreds of different varieties of Chilli plants over the years but Ive never come across anything as weird as some plants I grown out this year. The seed was taken from a Jamacian Red Hot plant (a Chinense) which grew in the middle of my Tomato plants last year. Although Tomato & Chillis are from the same botanical family (Solanaceae or nightshade family) Ive never heard of them crossing before. The plants do however share some of the charactertics of the parent plants having 'Tomato like' leaves but 'chilli plant like' flowers & pods. All very weird. I have 4 plants all of which are growing like wild fire and are loaded with pods. Here are some pictures: The Plant (some specimens are nearly 3ft high) The Flowers (note chinense like multiple nodes but white flowers - tomato plants normally have yellow flowers) The pods (these are tepin size small spherical pods some of which are starting to ripen to black!) Has anyone else ever seen/heard of anything like this? Mark __________________ Mark

July 17, 2007	#3
veratrine Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: los angeles Posts: 16	that IS weird looking I don't know that I'd eat that. Have a look at some pics of black nightshade and see if it looks like what you have.

July 17, 2007	#5
feldon30 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2006 Location: Rock Hill, SC Posts: 5,346	I'd make sure your life insurance is paid up. __________________ [SIZE="3"]I've relaunched my gardening website -- [B]TheUnconventionalTomato.com[/B][/SIZE] * [I][SIZE="1"]*I'm not allowed to post weblinks so you'll have to copy-paste it manually.[/SIZE][/I]

July 17, 2007	#2
johno Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Arkansas zone 6b Posts: 441	Very interesting. Please keep us posted on the progress.

July 17, 2007	#6
orflo Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: belgium Posts: 134	It's a strange weird plant, the berries do look like the black nightshade (I grow a non-poisonous, sweet variety of it:susse schwarzbeere, comes from Germany), but the flowers look like solanum phureja or solanum andigena, and the leaves look like a cross between jaltomato and the black nightshade, did you ever grow solanum burbankii?Normally pepers will never cross outside the capsicum family, could there have been some weed seeds in the sowing soil? Frank

July 17, 2007	#7
svalli Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Vaasa, Finland, latitude N 63° Posts: 838	I have all sorts of solanums growing wild on our yard, garden and flower beds. I have seen such flowers, berries and leaves, but not exactly all of them same in one plant as in the picture. Still I think that this is one of the wild solanum species and not a chiltomato. I grew couple of years ago a similar looking plant called Garden Huckleberry, but I did not like the taste and since they looked so much like the wild ones growing as weeds in the garden, I decided not to eat them since I could not be sure, which of the berries could be poisonous.