The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Solanum caripense
Also called Tzimbalo
Solanum caripense, called tzimbalo or pepino berry, is an evergreen shrub from the Andes grown for its small, tangy, juicy yellow berries. It is rare in cultivation and performs best in warm, mostly frost-free climates or in a greenhouse.
Solanum caripense is a species of evergreen shrub native to South America and grown for its edible fruit.
Rare in cultivation, it is known as tzimbalo. The fruit closely resembles the related pepino (Solanum muricatum), and it has been speculated that Solanum caripense may be the wild ancestor of the pepino. Like the pepino, the tzimbalo is a relative of other nightshades cultivated for their edible fruit, including the tomato (S. lycopersicum), the naranjilla (S. quitoense) and the eggplant (S. melongena). Solanum caripense is part of the Basarthrum clade within the broader Potato clade.
The tzimbalo is presumed to be native to the temperate Andean regions of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Like the pepino, the tzimbalo can bear fruit within 1 or 2 years from seed. The fruits are round berries, to 2 cm in size, which ripen to yellow or pale green, with dark-colored longitudinal stripes. The flavor and texture, while similar to the pepino, tends to be tangier and more juicy.
Dwarf Tamarillo · Solanum acaule · Sodaapple nightshade · Ethiopian nightshade · American black nightshade · Solanum arcanum · New Zealand nightshade · Solanum berthaultii · Tamarillo · Solanum brevicaule · Solanum cajanumense · Bitter Apple
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Solanum caripense by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
