Evaluation of Local Types of Bird’s Eye Chilli (Capsicum frutescens L.) of Plant and Fruit Morphological Characters

Chilli is an important commercial crop grown for its pungency. Capsicum frutescens L. is one of the five cultivated species in the genus Capsicum. These are widely used as spice throughout the world due to characteristic pungency and also have applications in pharmaceutical industry. Capsicum frutescens L. exhibits large variation in plant and fruit characters. The present study was conducted to evaluate bird’s eye chilli genotypes and identify the variation for some plant physical characters and fruit morphological traits (qualitative and quantitative). A total of thirty-three genotypes including a check variety viz., Vellayani Samruddhi (C. frutescens L.) were used in the study. Field evaluation was carried out and observations such as leaf shape, leaf pubescence, flowers per axil, fruit orientation (plant physical traits) and fruit shape, fruit curvature, fruit colour, fruit glossiness and seed colour (fruit morphological characters) were recorded. The results on morphological evaluation revealed that most of the genotypes (26) possess ovate shaped leaves with pubescence. Flowers were erect being one to three per axil. All the genotypes had moderately triangular fruit shape with no curvature. The colour of seeds varied among the genotypes including light yellow (UASBCF-19, UASBCF-29 and Vellayani Samruddhi) and rest of the genotypes being orange yellow. The average values for quantitative traits such as fruit length, width, number of locules, pericarp thickness and fruit stalk length were observed to be 1.99 cm, 0.66 cm, 2.00, 0.29 mm and 2.23 cm respectively. This variations in qualitative characters of the fruit can be utilized in crop improvement programme.