Honey nectar plants. ornamental, medicinal plant. Commonly cultivated for edible fruit (chillie pepper), spicy plant. It is used to treat unspecified medicinal disorders, has environmental uses, as a poison and a medicine and for food.

Shrub to 2.5 m. Stems erect, spreading, usually zig-zagging, much branched, angular, sparse to moderately pilose when young, with simple hairs mixed with stalked glands, glabrescent. Leaves membranaceous, dark green, lanceolate, occasionally ovate to ovate-lanceolate, (1.3–)5–12 × (1.5–)2–5.3 cm, bases cuneate and decurrent, margins entire, apices acuminate, surfaces to sparsely pilose, denser on margins, veins and midribs, with densely pilose domatia on lower surfaces, hairs as stems; petioles (0.5–)1–2.2(–4) cm, pilose. Leaves membranaceous, dark green, lanceolate, occasionally ovate to ovate-lanceolate, (1.3–)5–12 × (1.5–)2–5.3 cm, bases cuneate and decurrent, margins entire, apices acuminate, surfaces to sparsely pilose, denser on margins, veins and midribs, with densely pilose domatia on lower surfaces, hairs as stems; petioles (0.5–)1–2.2(–4) cm, pilose. Calyx cupulate, truncate with undulating margin, 1.2–3 × 2–3.5 mm apically, lobes virtually absent, persistent but only slightly enlarged in fruit; glabrescent. Corolla white, greenish-white or pale green, rarely yellow, stellate, 5–7.5 mm long and 6–10 mm diameter with tube 1.2–2 mm long; lobes broadly ovate, 2–5 × 1.2–3.2 mm, spreading or reflexed after anthesis, shortly puberulous on margins and lobe apices. Stamens equal, filaments 0.7–1.6 mm long; anthers blue, blue-green or purple, oblong, 1.5–2.5 × 0.7–1.6 mm, exerted. Ovary smooth, brown, ovoid, 1–2.2 × 0.8–1.5 mm, glabrous; disc to 1.3 mm diameter and 0.3 mm broad or absent; style 3.2–4.5 mm long, exserted 0.5–1.5 m; stigma 0.2–0.3 mm diameter. Fruit smooth, red, occasionally orange, ovoid to narrowly conical elongated berries, 8–20 × (3–)5–6(–9) mm, often apically acute, usually borne erect, often deciduous (or eaten by birds) leaving empty cupulate calyces. Seeds yellow to orange-yellow, ovoid, discoidal or reniform to suborbicular, 3–3.5 × 2–3 mm, with thickened margin, foveolate/reticulate. Flowering from March-May.

Cultivated places, farms and homes.