Known and used for millennia, capers were mentioned by Dioscorides as being a marketable product of the ancient Greeks. Capers are also mentioned by the Roman scholar, Pliny the Elder. Ecology and Habit Dry heat and intense sunlight make the preferred environment for caper plants. Where native, plants grow spontaneously in cracks and crevices of rocks and stone walls. Plants grow well in nutrient poor sharply-drained gravelly soils.
Mature plants develop large extensive root systems that penetrate deeply into the earth.
Caper plants are small shrubs, and may reach about one meter upright. However, uncultivated caper plants are more often seen hanging, draped and sprawling as they scramble over soil and rocks. The caper's vegetative canopy covers soil surfaces which helps to conserve soil water reserves. Leaf stipules may be formed into spines. Flowers are born on first-year branches.