452 SOLANACEiE. 



FRUCTUS CAPSICI. 



Pod Pepper, Red Pepper, Guinea Pepper, Chillies, Capsicum; F. 

 Piment on Corail des Jardins, Poivre d'Inde ou de Guinee ; G. 

 Spanischer Pfeffer. 



Botanical Origin — The plants, the fruits of which are known as 

 Pod Pepj)er, have for a long period been cultivated in tropical countries, 

 and are now found in such numerous varieties that an exact determina- 

 tion of the original species is a point of great difficulty. Of several 

 species having pungent fruits, the two following are those which supply 

 the spice found in British commerce: — 



1. Capsicum fastigiatwni Blume,^ a small ramous shrub, with 4-sided, 

 fastigiate, diverging branches; fruit-bearing peduncles sub-geminate, 

 slender, erect; fruit very small, subcylindrical, oblong, straight, with 

 calyx obconical and truncate. It occurs apparently wild in Sovithern 

 India, and is extensively cviltivated in Tropical Africa and America. 



Roxburgh, who descril^es this plant under the name C. minimum, 

 terms it East Indian Bird Chilly or Cayenne Pejjper Capsieum. Wight 

 says that it is consumed by the natives of India, but that it is not the 

 sort preferred. It is this species that the authors of the British Phar- 

 macopoeia have cited as the source of the Fructus Capsici to be used in 

 medicine, and it certainly furnishes the greater part of the Pod Pepper 

 now found in the London market. 



2. C. annuum L., an herbaceous (sometimes shrubby?) plant, with 

 fruit extremely variable in size, form, and colour, in some varieties erect, 

 in others pendulous. According to Navidin, in whose opinion we concur, 

 C. longum DC.^ and C. grossiim Willd. are not specifically distinct from 

 this plant. It furnishes the larger kinds of Pod Pepper and, as we 

 believe, much of the Cayenne Pepper which is imported in the state of 

 powder. 



History — All species of Capsicum appear to be of American origin; 

 no ancient Sanskrit or Chinese name for the genus is known, and the 

 Latin and Greek names that have been referred to it are extremely 

 doubtful 



The earliest reference to the fruit as a condiment that we have met 

 with, occurs in a letter written in 1494 to the Chapter of Seville by 

 Chanca, physician to the fleet of Columbus in his second voyage to the 

 West Indies. The writer in noticing the productions of Hispaniola, 

 remarks that the natives live on a root called Age, which they season 

 with a spice they term Agi, also eaten with fish and meat.'* The first 

 of these words signifies yarn, the second is the designation of Red 

 Pepper, and still the common name for it in Spanish. Capsicum and 



1 Wight, Icones Plant. IndUji Orient, iv. - ThechiefdistinctionbetweenC. aHniU/m 



(1850) tab. 1617; CapHkumminimurn'Roxh. and C. longum is that the former has an 



Flor. Ind. i. (1832) 574. Fai-re has ascer- erect, the latter a pendulous fruit, 



tained that this is the Capsicumfrutencena of ^ Dunal in De Cand. Prodromus, xiii. i. 



the Species Plantarum of Linnajus, but not 412. 



that of the Hortus Clifortianus of the same ■* Letters of Cliristopher Columbus, trans- 

 botanist, to which latter the name C.frii- lated by Major (Hakluyt Society), 1870. 08. 

 tescens is usually applied. 



