Rocoto pepper plants

Hairy leaves, purple flowers, black seed, and the only pepper that prefers a cold night.

By Debra Austin

Species: Capsicum pubescens

A species of its own

Capsicum pubescens is the odd one out, and you can tell at a glance. The leaves are hairy, the flowers are purple rather than white, and the seed is black. No other cultivated pepper does all three, so a rocoto is the one pepper you can identify with the pods still green.

It has never been found growing wild and it does not cross easily with anything else, which is a large part of why it stayed in the Andes while other peppers went everywhere.

Rocoto, manzano, canario, locoto

These are the same species under four names. Rocoto is Peruvian, locoto is Bolivian, manzano means little apple in Mexico and describes the shape, and canario means canary and describes the yellow form.

So a Manzano Amarillo and a Yellow Rocoto are the same plant arriving under different flags. The pods are thick-walled and apple-shaped, and the wall thickness is why Peru stuffs them as rocoto relleno when nobody stuffs a cayenne.

Where the seed went

Semillas La Palma were the variety kings of Capsicum pubescens, and they went out of business in 2025. Nobody else carried that range in this species. For anyone who grows rocotos it is a real loss.

They have restarted in Cyprus, but they have not yet replenished the old offerings. A good deal of what they listed is simply not available anywhere right now, which is part of why we grow and keep what we do.

The cold thing

Rocotos come from Andean altitude, and they behave like it. They take cool nights that would sulk a habanero, and they keep setting fruit when the rest of the shelf has stopped.

The trade is time. They are slow to ripen, often past 120 days, and they want to become a small tree before they take the job seriously. Give one a large pot, a cooler corner and a long run, and it will outlive everything around it.

Room and temperature

Give it room: minimum 5+ gallons, or the ground. It grows past four feet.

Keep it cool: it thrives and fruits at 55–75°F, takes a light frost near 28°F, and quits above 86°F.

How hot a rocoto is

Rocotos are hot in the middle of the scale, and the thick wall makes the burn feel different from a thin habanero. The range for the plants we list is on this page, taken from our own table. Black seed and hairy leaves are the identification. Heat is not.

Stuffed, like an apple

Rocoto relleno is the use: a thick-walled pod, seeds scraped, filled and baked. Manzano means little apple for that reason. No other pepper we grow has the wall and the black seeds together.

The Rocotos we grow

Questions people ask

Is a manzano the same as a rocoto?

Yes. Rocoto, locoto, manzano and canario all name Capsicum pubescens. The names are regional and, in the case of manzano and canario, descriptive of shape and colour.

How do I know I have a rocoto?

Hairy leaves, purple flowers and black seed. No other cultivated pepper has all three.

Why is my rocoto taking so long?

They are slow by nature, often past 120 days to ripe fruit, and they put size on before they fruit heavily. That is normal, not a problem with the plant.

Can rocotos handle cold?

Better than any other pepper we grow. They came from the Andes and they keep working on cool nights that stall a chinense.