Bishop’s Crown

Bishop’s Crown, also sold as Christmas Bell or Bishop’s Hat, is a Capsicum baccatum chilli with a three-lobed, wing-like shape. I have grown it in my garden for several seasons, including a plant that I overwintered into its third year, and a 2025 pot plant I called Kudzu. In my garden it grows better than any of my other varieties, and it grows very well in our climate here in Slovenia. The fruit is not very hot, with a fruity flavour and thick, fleshy walls.

Appearance

The ripe pod has a broad, three-sided shape that looks like a bishop’s mitre or a small bell with wings. It usually starts green and turns a bright red when ripe, though some strains are sold in yellow or orange. The skin is smooth and glossy, the walls are thick and fleshy, and the fruit is typically about 5 to 8 cm across. If you are trying to name a pepper from a photo, that winged outline is the clue. The flowers are white with a greenish-yellow mark at the base; I photographed them in The Bishop’s Crown Chilli Flower and The Beauty of the Bishop’s Crown Flower.

Heat

How hot is a Bishop’s Crown? In my garden I find it not very hot. Listings commonly give a range of 5,000-15,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). That is a reported range, not a lab test of fruit from this garden, and it places the chilli well below habanero or ghost pepper.

What you can expect:

• not very hot in this garden
• a reported range of 5,000-15,000 SHU
• much milder than a habanero

More on the scale is on the Scoville Scale page. The figure is widely repeated, including on WikiPepper.

Growing

In my garden it grows better than any of my other varieties, and it does very well in our climate here in Slovenia. I have grown it in the garden and in a pot, and I have overwintered a plant into a third season. In 2024 the first flower was there at the end of June, the first pod in mid-July, and by mid-August the fruit was getting close to harvest, once the pods felt firm and began to turn from green to red. In 2025 I started Kudzu in late February and transplanted it into its pot on 30 March; that plant-by-plant record is in Season 2025: Bishop’s Crown, Kudzu.

Useful growing notes:

• grows very well in a Slovenian climate in this garden
• can be grown in a pot, as Kudzu was in 2025
• can be overwintered, with one plant in this garden reaching a third season
• pick when pods are firm and have turned to a full ripe colour, usually red

Notes on bringing plants through winter are in How to Overwinter Chilli Plants.

Culinary uses

The flavour is fruity, and the fruit has thick, fleshy walls. It is not very hot, which is why I find it useful fresh as well as cooked. The unusual shape makes it a good choice for salads, salsas and as a garnish.

Popular uses include:

• fresh in salads and salsas
• cooking and garnishing

Sources & review notes

Last reviewed: 13 November 2026. We checked reported heat, names, species and origin against the sources below.

Uncertainty: the 5,000-15,000 SHU range is a reported figure, not a lab measurement of fruit from this garden. Some public listings give Barbados as the origin; I have not confirmed a primary source, so origin is not stated here as a settled fact. I am not repeating Peri Peri as an alternative name, because that usually refers to a different chilli.