[dmforcier]

Word is that they were first reported by one of the Texas ag stations, and are considered to be "native" to central and south Texas and northeastern Mexico.

My impression is that they aren't stable enough to have a long history. Best guess is that someone found a naturally occurring variation and "encouraged" it, but never really stabilized it.

Frankly, other than the pod shape there's nothing special about the pepper. I did get one sport that smelled like roses when you opened a pod, but we couldn't replicate it in the next two generations, and the mother froze off in the moving van. Free seed if anyone's interested.