>From: jim@wildpepper.com >There was a 7' tall bird pepper that Dave had his picture taken >with- it also had quite a bit of shade fro the overhead natural canopy. Hmm, I had never thought of chile plants that way before - as forest boundary trees, like dogwoods or sassafrass. One thing that keeps me wondering about the origins of chiles - I may be wrong on this, but I think I heard once that in southern California, there are various types of plants found nowhere else on the continent. This is because they rode piggyback on various "terranes" or chunks of land that have collided with and stuck to the western edge of this continent, due to continental drift over many millions of years. I heard that the SF area is full of these chunks of exotic rock from far away. (read the last paragraph on this page:) http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol111/pltect.htm So, if the continental margin along South America's coastline shares this trait (I don't know if it does) what if chiles did not originate in Bolivia or Peru, but somewhere else entirely, and they were already growing on land that later attached to the continent? (cue up the Donovan) Hail the lost mythic continent of Mu, birthplace of El Grande! Of course, it is equally likely that habs came to us from benevolent alien life forms, which would explain last year's Open Fields poster. - A _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx