CAP 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



CAR 



245 



and olive-pepper, being tender, the plants should be put into 

 pots, and placed in an old hot-bed under a deep frame, where 

 they may have room to grow ; or if they are planted in the 

 full ground, the plants should be each covered with a bell- 

 ^lass, to screen them from cold ; these glasses may be set off 

 every day in warm weather, and placed over them in the 

 evening again ; and in unfavourable weather, the glasses 

 should be raised on the side opposite to the wind, to admit 

 fresh air. With these precautions the fruit will ripen in 

 England, which seldom arrive at maturity without it ; and 

 never, except in very warm seasons. The beauty of these 

 plants lies in their ripe fruit, which being of different forms 

 and colours, intermixed with the green leaves and white 

 flowers, which appear at the same time, make a pretty 

 appearance at the latter part of the summer, when they are 

 properly disposed in the borders of the flower-garden ; or if 

 planted in pots for the decoration of courts, and intermixed 

 with other annual plants, which are in beauty at the same 

 season, they will make a pleasing variety, especially if as 

 many of the different-shaped fruits, of both red and yellow 

 colours, as can be procured, are propagated. 



2. Capsicum Baccatum; Small-fruited Capsicum, or Bird- 

 Pepjjer. Stem shrubby, smooth, and even ; peduncles in 

 pairs. This differs but slightly from the fifth species ; the 

 stem is tenderer, more shrubby, and not roughish ; the berries 

 are very small, of an ovate form, and of the size of cur- 

 rants ; the branches are divaricated, not spreading out at a 

 right angle with the stem. According to Loureiro, the stem is 

 three feet high, smooth, and upright, with longish, scattered, 

 slender branches ; leaves lanceolate, quite entire, smooth, 

 scattered, small, petioled ; berry roundish, very red, the size 

 of a common cherry ; the lower leaves opposite, the upper 

 alternate. It is gathered when ripe, dried in the sun, pounded, 

 und mixed with salt ; it is then kept stopped in bottles, and 

 is known by the name of Cayenne-pepper. A mixture of sliced 

 cucumbers, eschalots, or onions, cut very small, a little lime 

 juice and Madeira wine, with a few pods of this or bonnet- 

 pepper, well mashed, and mixed with the liquor, seldom fails 

 to excite the most languid appetite in the West Indies, and is 

 therefore called man-dram. The pods, gathered fresh from 

 the bush, are also liberally used in the West Indies, to assist 

 digestion and correct flatulencies : both this and the common 

 Guinea-pepper are given internally to horses and mules, to 

 cure the dry gripes, occasioned by rank and sour grass : they 

 are likewise externally applied in cataplasms. Miller enu- 

 merates four sorts with perennial shrubby stalks, and informs 

 us, that they rise four or five feet high, and are not so hardy 

 as the annual sort; hence, when they have been brought 

 forward in the hot-bed, as was directed for the common sorts, 

 they should be each planted in a pot filled with rich earth, 

 and plunged into a very moderate hot-bed, under a deep 

 frame, where they may have room to advance ; and in warm 

 weather, they should have a large share of air admitted 

 to them, but must be covered with glasses every night 

 in cold weather, and frequently watered. Thus managed, 

 they will produce plenty of fruit in autumn, which ripen in 

 winter ; but they must be removed into the stove on the first 

 approach of frost, and placed where they may have a tem- 

 perate warmth, in which they will thrive better than in a 

 greater heat ; and the fruit will continue in beauty most part 

 of the winter, making a pretty appearance in the stove during 

 that season. 



3. Capsicum Sinense; Chinese Capsicum. Stem shrubby ; 

 flowers and fruits pendulous ; trunk perennial, woody, with 

 an ash-coloured bark. The whole plant is smooth ; fruit 

 shining, ovate, obtuse, obscurely angular, yellow, very small ; 



VOL. i. 21. 



seeds pale. Native of China; cultivated in Martinico, and 

 used there for culinary purposes. 



4. Capsicum Grossum ; Heart-shaped Capsicum, or Bell- 

 pepper. Stem undershrubby ; fruits thickened, various. 

 This bears a great resemblance to the annual Capsicum, and 

 indeed seems to be the connecting link between the herba- 

 ceous and shrubby sorts. The stem is perennial, a span in 

 height, and somewhat branching ; the fruit is very large in 

 proportion to the plant, being almost as big as an apple, 

 but differing in shape ; it is solitary and erect, from an inch 

 and half to two inches long, swelling and wrinkled, flatted 

 and angular at top. Bell-pepper is the sort most proper for 

 pickling, the skin being fleshy and tender, whereas in the 

 others it is thin and tough ; the fruit should be gathered 

 before it arrives at the full size, whilst the rind is tender ; it 

 should be slit down on one side, to get out the seeds ; after 

 which it should be soaked two or three days in salt and 

 water ; when drained from this, it must be covered with 

 boiling vinegar, and closely stopped down for two months, 

 and then boiled in vinegar to make it green ; it wants no 

 addition of spice. If the ripe fruit of this, or any of the 

 Capsicums, be thrown into the fire, jt will raise strong and 

 noisome vapours, which occasion vehement sneezing and 

 coughing, and often vomiting. The powder taken up the nose 

 will excite violent and dangerous fits of sneezing. These 

 plants, which are propagated for pickling, should be planted 

 in a rich spot of ground, in a warm situation, about a foot 

 and a half asunder, and shaded until they have taken root, 

 and afterwards duly watered in dry weather, which will greatly 

 promote their growth, and cause them to be more fruitful, 

 as also enlarge the size of the fruit ; thus there may be at 

 least two crops' for pickling obtained hi the same year, pro- 

 vided the season does not prove too cold, but there should 

 be one plant with large and forward pods chosen, to save 

 seeds ; and the first fruits on this should be suffered to remain, 

 that they may have time to perfect their seeds before the- 

 frost comes on in autumn, for the early frost generally 

 destroys these plants : when the fruit is fully ripe, it should 

 be cut off, and hung up in a dry room till the spring, when 

 the seeds are wanted. 



5. Capsicum Frutescens; Shrubby Capsicum. Stem 

 shrubby, roughish ; peduncles solitary ; stem three feet 

 high, and rugged ; branches diffused, frequently scandent; 

 leaves lanceolate, quite entire, waved, small, smooth, pe- 

 tioled, alternate or scattered ; flowers axillary, small, white, 

 five or six cleft ; fruit at first green, but when ripe golden 

 or saffron-coloured, crooked, and shaped like a horn, an 

 inch long, usually solitary. 



Capura ; a genus of the class Hexandria, order Monogy- 

 nia. GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix: none. Corolla: mo- 

 nopetalous, tubular ; tube cylindric ; border six-parted ; 

 divisions rounded, the exterior alternate ones narrower. 

 Stamina : filamenta hardly any ; antherae six, oblong, within 

 the tube; the alternate ones superior. Pistil: germen 

 superior, triangularly roundish, truncate; style cylindric, 

 very short ; stigma nearly globose. Pericarp : berry. ES- 

 SENTIAL CHARACTER. Calix: none. Corolla: six-cleft. 

 Stamina: within the tube. Germen: superior. Stigma: 

 globular. Pericarp: berry. The species are, 



1. Capura Purpurata. A tree with brachiate purplish 

 branches ; leaves opposite, subpetioled, ovate, quite entire, 

 sharpish, deciduous ; bunches of flowers axillary, shorter 

 than the leaves, purple. Native of the East Indies. 



Caraway. See Cams. 



Cardamine ; a genus of the class Tetradynamia, order Sili- 

 quosa. GENERIC CHARACTER. Calix: perianth four-leaved; 

 3R 



