Red Chilies (photo by Clara Natoli, courtesy of morguefile.com)

Poinsettias may be the current ornamental plant of choice for holiday gift giving, but the old tradition in the American Southwest of giving colorful chili plants is making a comeback. And it's not just red and green chilies for the Christmas season. That’s according to an article from the Associated Press posted on Yahoo!

AP reports, “Paul Bosland, professor of horticulture and director of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, breeds ornamental chilies with holiday-specific colors, including peppers that turn from orange to black for Halloween, yellow to orange for Thanksgiving and red to white for Valentine's Day.”

On the health front, chili peppers have a mistaken reputation for contributing to stomach ulcers. Not only do they not cause ulcers, they can help prevent them by killing bacteria you may have ingested.

If you’d like to read the AP article cited above go to: Ornamental Chili Spices Up the Holidays

To learn more about the work of Professor Bosland go to: The Chile Pepper Institute