For some people, Valentine’s Day is nothing to get excited about. However, the members of the Botany Club organized an eating contest that they hoped would spice things up for all students. The club hosted “Cupid’s Chile Pepper Contest” in the Brickyard Wednesday.

The contest organizers encouraged students passing through the Brickyard to test out their stomachs on four different varieties of chili peppers, each with an increasing degree of heat.

Although the event was held on Valentine’s Day, there was no strong tie to the holiday.

“We decided to have this event because we just wanted to raise awareness about the Botany Club,” Kyle Sink, a sophomore in biological engineering, said.

Gordon Dougherty, a sophomore in horticulture, said while the club does grow some chili peppers, the peppers that organizers used in the contest were not products of the club members’ work.

The club members gave out custom-made buttons to those who participated in the contest. The contest featured four different kinds of peppers, each one of an increasing degree of heat.

The heat of chili peppers was measured using the Scoville Scale, which ranks the peppers according to how much capsaicin the pepper contains. Capsaicin is a chemical compound found in all chili peppers that is responsible for stimulating nerve ending in the skin and giving chili peppers their spicy taste.

An ordinary green bell pepper, which contains no capsaicin, would show a zero on the Scoville Scale. The peppers that the club members offered students at the contest yesterday ranged from the pablano, which scored a 2,000 on the Scoville Scale, to the habanero, which is considered to be one of the hottest spices in the world.

According to the Botany Club members, the habeneros measured at around 200,000 on the Scoville Scale. By comparison, the standard U.S. grade pepper spray police and riot control agencies use usually measures between 2,000,000 and 5,300,000 on the Scoville Scale.

Dougherty said the event was one that represented the club, as the club is about bringing people together.

“The Botany Club is about bringing people together that are interested in plants and plant biology,” Dougherty said. “It brings together people with the same interests, and gives them an idea of what they can do with botany.”