Re: [CH] Phillipines Pepper
John H. Sphar (jsphar@pacbell.net)
Wed, 24 May 2006 21:50:30 -0700 (PDT)
I found siling labuyo on Dave DeWitt's pages. Here is
what I found at
http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/davesgarden99.html
The "Siling Labuyo," illustrated here in its green
form, turns a bright red and is a very appealing,
elegantly-shaped pod about three-fourths of an inch
long. I never figured out how it happened, but this
Filipino chile was long-touted as the world’s hottest
chile. I had only seen the dried red pods, so I had no
idea what species it was. Yes, it was hot, but not as
hot as most habaneros. Speculation ran from the
frutescens species, making it a tabasco relative, to
the chinense species, a habanero relative. But
carefully look at the leaves of the plant and notice
how hairy they are. This trait, known as pubescence,
is associated with the leaves of two other Capsicum
species, pubescens and some varieties of annuum.
When I looked at my siling labuyo, not only did its
leaves resemble those of a serrano, its flowers looked
like serrano flowers. Its pods were clearly in the pod
type of Piquin in the annuum species. I took a sample
from my garden of leaves, flowers, and pods all on the
same branch to Dr. Paul Bosland at The Chile Pepper
Institute of New Mexico State University, and he
agreed with me: "Siling Labuyo" is a domesticated
Piquin This mystery, assuming the seeds were
authentic, seems to be solved. It is an annuum, but
one of the hotter ones, with a heat scale rating of up
to 100,000 Scoville Units, within the lower range of
habaneros, which measure, generally, 80,000 to 200,000
Scoville Units. I should point out that some seeds
listed as "Siling Labuyo" are frutescens, so this may
be a case of two species sharing a common name.
"Siling" means "chile" in Tagalog, a native language
of the Philippines, and if I had to guess what
"labuyo" means, I’d say "incendiary."
John
--- Byron <byronbromley@tellink.net> wrote:
> Any one here know the name of a chile that grows
> wild in the Phillipines??
>
> A friend and a real chile head ( the type that eats
> Savinas on his eggs
> and uses tobasco sauce as a mouth wash) said he
> purchased a shopping
> bag full for 10¢. He felt that they were hotter
> than the Red Savina
> and/or the Choc hab.
>
> 10Q
>
> L,B.
>
>
>
>