STURTEVANT S NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 1 37 



in two varieties, the red and the yellow,^ and in Cochin China.^ In Ceylon there are three 

 varieties, a red, a yellow and a black.' It has been in English gardens since 1656. Its 

 long, obtuse pods are very pungent and in their green and ripe state are used for pickling, 

 for making Chile vinegar; the ripe berries are used for making cayenne pepper. Burr' 

 describes the fruit as quite small, cone-shaped, coral-red when ripe, and intensely acrid 

 but says it will not succeed in open culture in the north. 



C. minimum Roxb. cayenne pepper. 



Phihppine Islands. This is said to be the cayenne pepper of India.^' " Wight ' says 

 this pepper is eaten by the natives of India but is not preferred. It grows also on the 

 coast of Guinea and is recognized as a source of capsicum by the British Pharmacopoeia.' 

 It is intensely pungent. 



C. tetragonum Mill, bonnet pepper, lunan pepper, paprika. Turkish pepper. 



Tropical regions. This species is said by Booth ' to be the bonnet pepper of Jamaica. 

 The fruits are very fleshy and have a depressed form like a Scotch bonnet. In lower 

 Hungary, under the name paprika, the cultivation gives employment to some 2500 families. 

 The fruit is red, some three and a half to five inches long, and three-quarters of an inch 

 to an inch in diameter. 



McMahon, 1806,*' says capsicums are in much estimation for culinary purposes and 

 mentions the Large Heart-shaped as the best. He names also the Cherry, Bell and Long 

 Podded. In 1826, Thorbum" offers in his catalog five varieties, the Long or Cayenne, 

 the Tomato-shaped or Squash, the Bell or Ox-heart, the Cherry and the Bird or West 

 Indian. In 1881 he offers ten varieties. 



Groups of Capsicum. 

 In the varieties under present cultivation, we have distinct characters in the calyx 

 of several of the groups and in the fruit being pendulous or erect. It is worthy of note 

 that the pendulous varieties have a pendulous bloom as well as fruit, and the erect varieties 

 have erect bloom. Some heavy fruits are erect, while some light fruits are pendulous. 

 Another distinct character is the flavor of the fruit, as for instance all the sweet peppers 

 have a like calyx, and a like color. While again there may seem at first to be considerable 

 variability in the fruits even on the same plant, yet a more careful examination shows 

 that this variability is more apparent than real and comes from a suppression or distor- 

 tion of growth, all really being of a similar type. 



' Ainslie, W. Mat. Ind. 1:^06. 1826. 



' Ibid. 



' Moon Indig. Exol. Pis. Ceylon 1824. 



* Burr, F. Field, Card. Veg. 619. 1863. 



' Drury, H. Useful Pis. Ind. iii. 1873. 



Fluckiger and Hanbury Pharm. 406. 1879. 



' Firminger, T. A. C. Card. Ind. 153. 1874. {C. fastigiatum) 



'U. S. Disp. 207. 1865. {C. fasUgatum) 



' Booth, W. B. Treas. Bot. 1:219. 1870. 

 "> McMahon, B. Amer. Card. Cal. 31^. 1806. 

 " Thorbum Cat. 1828. 



