CAYENNE PEPPER. 453 



I have not seen any adequate description by any authority of 

 these starch grains, but my own observation shows me that 

 they are not unhke the grains of g'inger starch, either in shape 

 or size, and the one may easily be mistaken for the other. 

 According to my measurements the average size of the starch 

 grains in Capsicum annuuni is about 30 x 25 micra, a size not 

 greatly diverse from what I have found the grains of starch 

 in Jamaica ginger to be, viz., on an average 33 x 24 micra. I 

 may add that both in Cochin and in iVfrican ginger I found 

 identical averages of starch grain sizes, namely, 32 x 23 micra. 

 Greenish gives the general length of ginger starch grains as 

 20 to 30 micra; some he says are from 30 to 40, and occasionally 

 45 to 50 is reached. 



I have found in Cayenne peppers adulterated with ginger far 

 more starch than one may expect even in paprika, let alone 

 Capsicum minimum. The starch so found by me resenibled in 

 general appearance the grains above described, and seemed to 

 be, as a rule, about 29 x 23 micra in size. Although resembling 

 ginger starch in size and shape, the resemblances were not 

 always in themselves sufficient to enable me to conclude that 

 they actually ivere gingfer, but, as just stated, they were far 

 more numerous than starch grains are even in pure paprika. 



In such cases, however, it was not always easy to identify any 

 ginger elements other than starch. At the same time I have 

 found it quite possible to make up mixtures of pure powdered 

 Capsicum niinimiim and ginger, containing 10 per cent, of the 

 latter, in which it was most difficult positively to identify any 

 elements of ginger other than starch under the microscope, 

 even with the full knowledge that ginger is present. This is 

 due to the fact that ginger — all the more when powdered — ■ 

 contains so much starch that addition of ginger to a non- 

 starchy Cayenne pepper would practically amount to addition 

 of only starch grains without other elements capable of differen- 

 tiation from the elements of capsicum under the microscope. 



On allowing mixtures of the class just described to remain 

 in such conditions as to "favour the growth of mould, they have 

 become permeated through and through with fungus spores, 

 and the fungoid growth has brought about the consumption 

 c^nd alteration of a great part of the starch so as to render 

 identification of ginger almost, and estimation of its amount 

 quite, impossible in the absence of ginger elements other than 

 starch. This change is accentuated in the case of Cayenne 

 peppers of the inferior type that turn mouldy very rapidly. 

 Samples, in which the identification of starch had once been 

 easy, became so changed after keeping them for a year that 

 lumps of Cayenne pepper, compacted together in a mouldy con- 

 dition, were found, in which the most careful microscopic ex- 

 amination failed to show nnv ■starch sfrains at all. 



