Years ago when I worked in southeast Georgia, and the gulf coast Texas area, I worked with some guys who used to find these peppers growing wild on the side of the road. They were HOT. They were small and round and red, and grew wild close to the ground. They were about the size of a pea to the best of my recollection. Thanks, Ed

something like this?

https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/chil ... i-peppers/

That could be it. I never ate one, but know that they are hot. I picked one once, and was just kind of fiddling with it, and picking at the skin, and tossed it away. A while later I went to the bathroom, and then I realized I hadn't washed my hands after handling the pepper.............yeoooooowwww!

Thanks for bringing that up, it reminded me of when I was younger eating wild peppergrass seeds and had to look it up. I completely forgot about chewing on them while playing in the yard 40 years ago. I need to ask the older family members how we knew it was OK to eat weeds for a pepper flavor, I know someone had to tell us about it or at least I hope us kids weren't running around chewing on weeds randomly. I'll keep an eye out for it know and taste it to see if it's what I remember. Here's a site that explains the benefits, http://www.batladyherbals.com/2019/07/peppergrass.html

I have one of the wild peppers growing at my place, been here for years.
Popular ingredient in some Mexican hot sauces.
The folks in Oklahoma where I used to live called the pepper grass seeds tickle tongue.
I heard a cows milk would take on the flavor if they started eating it.

Yes, the Pequin pepper. Small but very hot. I will be growing it again.

[mention]edweather[/mention]

Also check out bird peppers generally: Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum. (I mean the peppers that birds are known for eating, which includes Tepin and maybe others mentioned above.)

If it was round, most likely it was a tepin pepper. It could have been a pequin (or bird) pepper, but they are more elongated. Both are fun to grow and pack some heat!

When I was at Monticello in Charlottesville they had the round chilitepin at their seed store, the variety Thomas Jefferson had grown.

A year later I went to Mt. Vernon, and they had the pointed pequin that they say was grown in George Washington’s garden.

Of course I had to buy both.

What about this one from Sonora Mexico.
https://www.nativeseeds.org/collections ... ucts/dc080

[mention]AZGardener[/mention] ...sprinkled over vanilla ice cream? That should tone down the heat...

[mention]edweather[/mention]

Pepper Lover has a huge selection of wild peppers. Do any of them seem like the one you saw?

https://pepperlover.com/pepper-seeds/pe ... ild-pepper

I grew the chiltepin many years ago, and for the size of those things, they packed a punch! The plants were covered with small, pea sized peppers. Back then, before the superhots were around, and Red Savinas were the hottest for a long time, a friend and I compared the heat in a sort of strange way - we cut a RS in half (the usual thing we popped, for an endorphin rush), and weighed a half, then we weighed out an equal number of chiltepins - 28 of them was en equal weight. We each then chewed up 28 chiltepins, and they really weren't as hot as a half of a RS, by far, but the heat was instant. Couldn't get his wife to try it with us... not sure why, as she would chew habs with us. She did think that we were nuts, for trying this.