Chiltepin Tepin Chile Pequin Seeds Planting Ornaments Perennial Garden - plantas de chile Chiltepin Pepper - Mother of All Peppers Looking more like

Chiltepin Tepin Chile Pequin Seeds Planting Ornaments Perennial Garden - plantas de chile Chiltepin Pepper - Mother of All Peppers Looking more like a small round berry than a chile, the Chiltepin – pronounced “chill tuh peen” – is one of the oldest of the very few remaining wild chiles still available. Considered by many to be the mother of all chiles, it is the only indigenous pepper to the U.S., still growing on shrubs under nurse plants in canyons throughout southern Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and northern Mexico. Its name comes from the Aztec Nahuatl language – spoken when Cortés arrived and still used today by approximately 1 ½ million people in Mexico – of chiltecpin, “chilli” + “tecpintl”, meaning “flea chile”. The pea-sized scarlet berries are an irresistible snack to the wild birds who are credited with their spread from South America all the way up to the southern U.S. and why they are also known as “bird peppers” in the Southwest. Today this unique little chile goes by many names - chile tepin, chile del monte, chillipiquin, a’al kokoli (in O’odham), chiltepictl (in Nahuatl), amash (in Mayan), chilillo, chilpaya, huarahuao, and piquen.