Peter Piper would be having a field day

If there's one thing I am sure of, it's that readers of this blog know way more than I do. So I'm asking, as I sometimes do, for help for a couple of readers who want to identify mystery plants.

First, there's Sue with her packet of supposed mini bell mixed pepper plants, which when sown ended up looking like this:

Not peppers, to be sure, but what are they? Weeds or something else?

Then there's Anna, who definitely has a pepper, but which one? She writes: "this is a pepper plant that my friend's mom grows every year.  She is from Trinidad and she uses these peppers to cook.  They are very spicy. Her Mom, who is now deceased brought the seeds to the US from Trinidad.  We would love to know what kind of pepper this is". Any experts on Trinidadian peppers care to step forward? Nice pic, Anna.

Comments

[Thorrun]

Photo one looks very much like a weed I constantly pull up. I would suggest it is known as Redshank following a Google search.

[Thorrun]

Further searching produced the names:
Persicaria maculosa or Polygonum persicaria. This subject is of interest to me as I have been cultivating its cousin Persicaria odorata otherwise known as Vietnamese Coriander or Rau Ram. Wonderful as a culinary spice.

[John]

It looks like knot weed to me. Keep us updated on this plant....Curious about it..Will come back to visit.

[Ed]

The plant on the top looks like a knot weed or perhaps pig weed? Whatever it is, I would recommend *not* letting it go to seed! :)

[Allotment Blogger]

I would guess the pepper is capsicum chinense, known as 'seasoning pepper' in Trinidad - it's often used to make soup and it's a habanero with a hot/sweet rather than very hot taste. I love them!

[Laura]

The first picture does look like
Vietnamese Coriander (Polygonum odoratum) but the leaves are slimmer and the flowers are longer and have touches of pink. But it does look related. The mystery to me is that Polygonum odoratum is not meant to be able to propagate from seed. Do you know what the seeds looked like and is it possible some seed blew into the seed bed/pot?
The peppers don't have the classic Habanero shape of the Trinidad seasoning pepper. But that could just be becasue the photo is of immature fruit. The habs have a very unmistakable fruity flavour do these?

[Celine Ellis]

Im with Thorrun on this one - either redshank or pale persicaria but without taking a seed sample and looking at the cotelydon leaves hard to precisly know - either way a polygonum species which more often than not are weeds.

I have worked with weeds for the last 6 years in my agricultural research job and this is a pretty common spring germinater.

As for the pepper identification its going to need more than a photo to differenciate between those bleeders!

Celine