CAPSICUM ANNUUM. ORD, XII. Solanacee, seu Lurid. 227 
.and stand at the axille of the leaves upon long peduncles: the calyx 
is persistent, angular, tubular, and cut at the extremity into five 
short segments: the corolla is monopetalous, wheel-shaped, consist- 
ing of a short tube, divided at the limb into five segments, which | 
are spreading, pointed, and plaited: the five filaments are short, 
tapering, and furnished with oblong antherz: the germen is egg- 
shaped, and supports a slender style, which is longer than the fila- 
ments, and terminated by a blunt stigma: the capsule is a long 
conical pod, or berry, of a shining reddish colour, separated into 
two cells, which contain several fiattish kidney-shaped seeds. It is 
a native of both Indies, and flowers in June and July, 
This species, and all its varieties noticed above, were cultivated | 
by Gerard, and are now commonly produced in the garden stoves 
of this country: the fruit varies both in shape and colour, but that 
which is of a conical form, and of a reddish or orange colour, is 
preferred. Its taste is extremely pungent and acrimonious, setting 
the mouth as it were on fire, and this sensation is of considerable 
duration. “ It gives out its pungency to rectified spirit, together 
with a pale yellowish red tincture: the spirit, gently distilled off, 
has no considerable impregnation from the capsicum: the remaining 
extract is insupportably fiery.’”* 
The use of this and the other species of Capsicum, which have 
long been employed for culinary purposes, have but lately been 
adopted as a medicine. Cayenne pepper, which is now much used 
at our tables, is the fruit of Capsicum baccatum of Linnzus, ( Bird- 
pepper ) and differs not materially in its effects from that of the 
species here figured, for which it is frequently substituted. In hot 
climates, particularly in the West Indies,’ and in some parts of 
Spanish America, the Capsicum is eaten both with animal and 
vegetable food in large quantities, and it enters so abundantly into 
their sauces, that to a person unaccustomed to eat them, their taste 
is intolerably hot.‘ But in the climates of which the Capsicum is 
* Kewis, M. M. p, 508, 6 Vide Browne’s Jamaica, p. 176. 
* At Peru especially. Vide, Frezier Voyage de la Mer du Sud, ¢. 1. p. 262 
i 
