Capsicum longifolium

Description. Erect, scandent shrubs (0.60 -) 1.40 - 3 m tall, laxly branched above, the branches bending down. Young stems angled, fragile, green, glabrous; nodes green or purplish-green; bark of older stems striate, dark green, glabrous; lenticels ovoid, whitish to light brown. Sympodial units difoliate, the leaves geminate; leaf pair markedly unequal in size and shape. Leaves coriaceous, slightly discolorous, adaxial surface dark green and shiny, abaxial surface light green and opaque, glabrous on both surfaces and margins; blades of major leaves (7 -) 8.5 - 17 (- 18) cm long, (0.8 -) 1 - 2.5 cm wide, narrowly elliptic, the major veins (11 -) 13 - 17 on each side of mid-vein, the base asymmetric and attenuate, the margins entire, the apex acuminate; petioles (0.2 -) 0.5 - 1.4 cm long, glabrous; blades of minor leaves 2.5 - 5.7 cm long, 1 - 2 cm wide, ovate or broadly elliptic, the major veins 4 - 5 on each side of mid-vein, the base short-attenuate, sometimes asymmetric, the margins entire, the apex obtuse; petioles 0.1 - 0.5 cm long, glabrous. Inflorescences axillary, 3 - 7 (- 9) flowers per axil or sometimes on a short rachis, rarely flowers solitary; flowering pedicels 3 - 8 mm long, filiform, terete, pendent, slightly curved, non-geniculate at anthesis, green, glabrous; pedicels scars inconspicuous. Buds ovoid, yellow or purplish-yellow. Flowers 5 - merous. Calyx 2.5 - 3 mm long, 2.8 - 3 mm wide, cup-shaped, membranous, translucent, light green or greenish-purple, glabrous, the calyx appendages 2 - 3, 2 - 2.5 mm long, 1.8 - 2.2 mm wide, subequal, thick, green or purple, oblique or spreading, triangular-compressed, wing-like, glabrous. Corolla 6 - 8.5 mm long, 8 - 11 mm in diameter, thick, entirely yellow or yellow with red-brown pigmentation in the throat or at margin lobes within, campanulate-stellate, without or with a thin interpetalar membrane, lobed 1 / 3 to nearly halfway to the base, glabrous adaxially and abaxially, the tube (3 -) 4 - 5 mm long, the lobes 3 - 3.5 (- 4) mm long, ca. 3 mm wide, broadly ovate, erect or spreading, the tips cucullate and papillate. Stamens five, equal; filaments 2 - 2.6 mm long, white or red-brown, inserted on the corolla ca. 2 mm from the base, with auricles fused to the corolla at the point of insertion; anthers 2 - 2.75 mm long, ellipsoid, purplish-white or brown, connivent at anthesis. Gynoecium with ovary 1.6 - 1.8 mm long, 1.2 mm in diameter, white or light green, subglobose; ovules more than two per locule; nectary 0.3 - 0.5 mm tall; styles homomorphic, 5 - 5.8 mm long, exserted 1 - 1.4 mm beyond the anthers, white and lilac at the apex or red-brown, clavate; stigma 0.3 mm long, 0.2 - 0.4 mm wide, somewhat bilobed, light green. Berry 8 - 13 mm in diameter, globose, slightly flattened at the apex, green when immature, orange at maturity, deciduous, non-pungent, the pericarp thick, opaque, lacking giant cells (endocarp smooth); stone cells absent; fruiting pedicels 10 - 16 mm long, pendent, terete, widened distally, green; fruiting calyx 4 - 5.5 mm in diameter, persistent, not accrescent, discoid, green-purple or green, the appendages short and wide (2 - 2.8 mm long, 2.4 - 2.6 mm wide at base) or long and more slender (4.5 - 5.5 mm long, ca. 1.5 mm wide at base), spreading or reflexed, green-purple or green. Seeds ca. 24 per fruit, 1.7 - 2.3 mm long, 1.7 - 2.2 mm wide, D- or teardrop-shaped, black, the seed coat reticulate (SM and SEM), the cells rectangular or polygonal in shape, the lateral walls straight or slightly sinuate; embryo annular.