Has help arrived to control Brazilian peppers?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

April 23, 2003

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The Brazilian pepper-tree (Schinus terebinthifolius Raddi) is native to Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. It is thought the small tree was introduced to Florida in the 1840s. Most experts agree the introduction was for the ornamental nursery trade.* Pepper-trees escaped cultivation and have aggressively colonized disturbed habitats. (Brazilian Pepper-tree, Schinus terebinthifolius,

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D.W. Hall and V.V. Vandiver, EDIS, 1991)

The fruit of the Brazilian pepper-tree is a drupe, single-seeded and berrylike, ripening red and sold as the spice, pink peppercorns. In Florida, the trees flower and fruit twice a year. The fruits are most noticeable in the winter. Mockingbirds, gray catbirds, and winter-resident birds like robins consume the fruits. Birds, particularly robins, appear 'intoxicated' by the fruits in late winter; the flocks fly low and erratically, and often injure or kill themselves by flying into stationary objects. Birds are considered the main means of seed dispersal.

Despite efforts to control Brazilian peppers, the trees re-colonize from seeds within months of being cleared from an area. The trees form large monocultures killing out native vegetation, but there may be some unsought help. According to J.P. Cuda, G.S. Wheeler, and D.H. Habeck, a new-to-Florida wasp (Megastigmus transvaalensis Hussey) was found in Palm Beach County emerging from pepper-tree fruits in 1988.

The female wasp lays one or two eggs in a fruit shortly after the tree has flowered; she will lay 10 to 25 eggs in all. The wasp has two generations per year synchronized with the pepper-tree's flowering. The fruit shows no signs that wasp larvae are inside, but seeds of infested fruits do not germinate. The beneficial wasp is spreading up the Florida peninsula.

No one is certain how the wasp, called the Brazilian pepper-tree seed chalcid, arrived in Florida. Three theories have been put forth: the wasp arrived back when pepper-trees were still being imported, the wasp came in the fruits imported for Christmas decorations, or the wasp eggs were inside pink peppercorns sold at gourmet food shops. (Brazilian peppertree seed chalcid, Cuda, Wheeler, and Habeck, IFAS)

The Institute for Systematic Botany, University of South Florida has photographs of the Brazilian peppertree. To view the photographs, click on the link:

http://www.plantatlas.usf.edu/main.asp?plantID=52

Then click on the tab labeled Images, and on thumbnails to enlarge the images.

*Note: On two occasions, elderly people have told me that during the Depression of the 1930s their families purchased and planted the trees for the 'pink peppercorns'. They implied their families were hoodwinked as the spice industry never developed or brought any returns for the effort in Florida. Brazilian peppers are not related to black pepper (Piper nigrum); they are in the Anacardiaceae and some people are allergic to the plants.

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