Hi Pam,

I've grown them before. You probably got your seed right.

In my experience they do tend to look more like Jalapenos than traditional Serrano. They are also in the typical Jalapeno heat range, 5,000 - 8,000 SHU.

They ripen from green to purple to finally red.

Bill

edit:

I just found some shots from John Fiedler's (fiedlermeister) pbase pages. John was the original source for my Purple Serrano seeds.

Flower

Unripe Pod

Ripe Pod

Ripe Pod shapes

This post was edited by ottawapepper on Sat, Jun 14, 14 at 14:46

Pam: from my experience, it's pretty easy to distinguish the two PLANTS even before fruit set. I've never grown purples, but I would imagine the growth behavior is the same as regular Serranos. Serranos will have spindly branches, smaller leaves than most annuums(and much more foliage than Japs), and tons of buds/flowers.

Kevin