540 SOLANACE.E. Capsicum. 



wise as Solanum. — Herbs or shrubs, natives of the warm parts of America, green 



and mostly glabrous ; with many-times forking stems, ovate and entire or barely 



repand thinnish leaves, and small flowers on solitary or cymose-clustfered pedicels. 



Corolla mostly white and the anthers bluish. 



Capsicum annuum, Linn., is the Cayenne Pepper, or Chile Colorado of the Mexicans, Avith 

 large and long pod-like fruit, of very warm and pungent acridity. 



1. C. baccatum, Linn. Shrubby, a foot or two high, with slender divero-in<^ 

 branches : leaves ovate, slender-petioled : berry globular, as large as a pea, on a 

 slender erect peduncle. 



Wild along the Mexican fiontier, and in Arizona, probably within the borders of the State, the 

 form called C. microphylluin by Dunal in DC. Prodr. 



4. CHAM^SARACHA, Gray. 

 Calyx 5-lobed, enlarging after flowering, but remaining rather herbaceous, not 

 reticidated, incompletely investing the rather dry-globose berry. Corolla rotate, 

 5-angulate. Anthers short, on slender (not at all connivent) fllaments ; the cells 

 opening lengthwise throughout. — Low perennial (Texano-Californian) herbs ; with 

 the corolla of Saracha and a calyx between that of Solanum and Physalis, with 

 rather narrow leaves tapering into margined petioles, and in their axils filiform 

 solitary or sometimes geminate pedicels, which are mostly refracted or recurved in 

 fruit. Corolla white, yellowish, or tinged with violet. — Benth. & Hook. Gen. PI. 

 ii. 891. Saracha § Chama^saracha, Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. x. G2. 



1. C. Coronopus, Gray. Difl'usely much branched, green, almost glabrous, or 

 beset with sumc .sijort and roughish hairs, a span high ; leaves lanceolate or linear 

 with cuneate-attenuate base, varying from almost entire to laciniate-pinnatifid : 

 calyx somewhat scurfy-hirsute with 2-forked hairs : corolla yellowish, half an inch 

 or less in diameter : berry nearly white : seeds thickish, rugose and lavose. — Sola- 

 nmn Coronopus, Dunal in DC. Prodr. xiii. G4. Withania (1) Coronopus, Torr. Bot. 

 Mex. Bound. 155. Saracha (Chamasaracha) Coronopus, Gray, 1. c. Saracha 

 acutifolia, Miers in Ann. & Mag. IS^at. Hist. 1849] (but the flowers too small). 



Arizona {Palmer) and S. Utah {Capt. Bishop) to Texas and Colorado. Not met with in Cali- 

 fornia, imless it be Saracha- acutifolia of Miers, and it is probable Coulter's specimen on which 

 that was founded came from Arizona. The more eastern and broader-leaved specimens are near 

 to C. sordida, which is pubescent and glandular. 



2. C. nana, Gray. Many-stemmed from slender creeping rootstocks, barely a 

 span high, cinereous-puberulent, comparatively large-leaved : leaves crowded, ob- 

 long-ovate and ovate-lanceolate, entire or undulate (the blade an inch or two long, 

 and at base contracted into a petiole of equal length) : peduncles mostly shorter 

 than the petiole : corolla white or bluish, 7 to 9 lines in diameter : fruiting calyx 

 hemispherical and with distant subulate teeth : seeds flat, smoothish, — Saracha 

 nana. Gray, 1. c. 



Eastern part of the Sierra Nevada in Nevada and Sierra counties, Kellogg or Bolander, Lent- 

 man. Connects with Physalis through P. grandiflora. 



5. PHYSALIS, Linn. Ground Chekiiy. 

 Calyx 5-lobed, enlarging after flowering and becoming membranaceous and veiny, 

 forming a loose bladdery envelope enclosing the 2-celled juicy berry. Corolla rotate 

 or commonly with an open-campanidate base, 5-angulate or obscurely lobed. An- 

 thers oblong or linear, not connivent, on short or slender filaments ; the cells open- 

 ing lengthwise tliroughout. — Herbs, widely distributed over the world, mainly in 



