152 The American Naturalist. [February, 
from Caucasus.’” It is also mentioned as a condiment by 
Chanca, physician to the fleet of Columbus in his second voyage 
to the West Indies, in a letter written in 1494 to the chapter of 
Seville.” It had already existed in tropical and southern Amer- 
ica under cultivation in numerous varieties. These have been 
described under many specific names by Fingerhuth ® and other 
botanists, but those varieties at present under northern cultivation 
can all be referred to the annual species, although differing ex- 
ceedingly in the form, color, and quality of their fruits. These 
varieties furnish a number of groups which are quite distinctly 
defined, and which seem in many cases to present specific char- 
acters, and these groups or types have existed unchanged now 
for several centuries, despite the different conditions to which 
they have been exposed. 
In the varieties under our present cultivation, the only ones 
which I propose to notice, we have distinct characters in the calyx 
of several of the groups; and in the fruit being pendulous and 
erect, and it is worthy of note that the pendulous varieties have a 
pendulous bloom as well as fruit, and the erect varieties have erect 
bloom, and some heavy fruitse are erect, while some light fruits 
are pendulous; and in the quality of the fruit, as for instance all 
the sweet peppers having a like calyx; and in the color of the 
fruit. While again there may seem at first to be considerable 
variability in the fruits even on the same plant, yet a more care- 
ful examination shows that this variability is more apparent than 
real, and comes from a suppression or distortion of growth, all 
really being of a similar type. 
The history of the appearance of each of these groups can 
best be seen by the synonymy, which is founded upon figures 
given with the descriptions, and which is intended to be con- 
servative rather than complete. 
I. The calyx embracing the fruit. 
(a.) Fruit pendulous. 
13 Irving. Columbus, III., 425, I., 238. 
5 Fingerhuth. Monog. Gen. Capsici, 1832. 

