CAPSICUM.] 



SOLANACE^. 



133 



CAPSICUM, Linn. This genus contains the various forms of Chillies and 

 Bed and Yellow Peppers so widely cultivated in India and other tropical 

 countries. It is indigenous in S.^America and is believed to have been 

 introduced into India about the middle of the seventeenth century. The 

 very large number of cultivated forms, many of which were previously 

 recognized as distinct species, have by recent authors been reduced to 

 the two original Linnean species : C. annuum and G. frutescens, the one 

 an annual and the other a perennial. Moreover, there is some 

 probability that these two may have originated from a single very 

 variable S. American species ; for, as Praiu remarks, the forms of 

 C. annuum are often not truly annual in the tropics, and in temperate 

 regions the perennial tropical forms rarely persist for more than one 

 season. (See Prain in Journ. As. Soc. Beng. Vol. Ixxiv, part 2, extra 

 number (1905), 335 ; Beng. PI 747; Cooke Fl Bomb, ii, 276 ; DC. L'Orig. 

 PL Cult. 229 -, P. B. I. iv, 238 ; Watt E.D. ; Comm. Prod. India 264. 



The following key, taken from Pram's " Bengal Plants," shows the 

 distinguishing characters of the varieties or forms of the two now 

 recognized species as met with in N. India : 



Pedicels solitary, erect or reflexed ; fruit erect, spreading or pendent 

 usually longer than the pedicel. Annual or perennial plants : 

 Flowers white ; berries red, orange or yellow when ripe : 

 Fruit not globular : 



Berries tapering, much longer than broad : 



Fruit stout ; flesh thick, usually mildly 



pungent ; calyx not enclosing base of 



berry ....... 



Fruit slender ; flesh thin, keenly pungent ; 

 calyx enclosing base of berry 



Berries not or hardly longer than broad, 

 usually blunt ; calyx not enclosing base of 

 berry: - 



Berries circular in section , flesh thin, 

 pungent ...... 



Berries swollen, angular in section, flesh 

 very thick, hatdly at all pungent 



Fruit globular, extremely pungent . . . 



Flowers purple ; berries dark-purple, becoming 

 orange -red, longer than broad, slightly 

 pungent ; calyx hardly enclosing the base 



Pedicels 2 or more, erect ; fruit always erect, red, 

 shorter than the pedicel, pungent. Perennial 

 plants with white flowers : 



C. annuum. 



C. annuum var. 

 acuminata. 



C. annuum var. 

 abbreviata. 



C. annuum var. 



grossa. 

 C. annuum var. 



cerasiforme. 



C. annuum Tar. 

 nigra. 



