CAPSICUM ANNUUM.— ANNUAL CAPSICUM, OP GUINEA PEPPEE. 
Class Y. PENTANDRIA.— Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, SOLAN E/E. THE NIGHTSHADE TRIBE. 
Guinea Pepper grows naturally in both the Indies. It appears to have been long known in this country, 
being mentioned by Gerarde ; but the date of its introduction has not been precisely ascertained. It is 
frequently cultivated in our gardens as an ornamental plant, and also for the sake of the young pods or 
berries, which make a favourite pickle. The flowers appear at the same time with the fruit, and are pro- 
duced from July to September. 
The plant rises two feet high ; is herbaceous, crooked, much branched, and has a smooth striated, some- 
what angular stem. The leaves are ovate, acuminate, smooth, entire, of a dark green colour, and stand 
irregularly on long foot-stalks. The flowers are solitary, petioled, proceed from the axillse of the leaves, and 
of a dirty white colour : the calyx is persistent, tubular, and divided into five short segments ; the corolla is 
synpetalous, wheel-shaped, consisting of a short tube, divided at the limb into five segments, which are 
spreading, pointed, and bent inwards at the margin : the filaments are five, shorter than the corolla, with 
oblong anthers ; the germen is ovate, surmounted by a slender style, which is longer than the filaments, and 
terminated by a blunt stigma. The fruit is a long pendulous inflated pod or berry, smooth, shining, of a 
crimson or yellow colour, two-celled, containing a whitish spongy pulp, and numerous flat kidney-shaped 
seeds. 
This species of capsicum varies greatly in the size, form, and colour of its berries. In some instances 
they are long and conical, or short and obtuse ; in others, heart-shaped, bell-shaped, or angular ; they vary 
also in colour, being generally of a bright red, but sometimes orange or yellow. 
Culture.-— The annual capsicums are propagated by seeds, which must be sown upon a hot-bed in 
the spring ; and when the plants have six leaves, they should be transplanted on another hot-bed, at four or 
five inches distance, shading them in the daytime from the sun until they have taken root, after which they 
must have air freely admitted to them in warm weather, to prevent their running up weak. Towards the 
end of May, the plants must be hardened, by degrees, to bear the open air ; and in June must be carefully 
taken up ; preserving as much earth about their roots as possible ; planting them into borders of rich 
earth ; observing to water them well, and shading them till they have taken root ; after which time, they 
will require no other management, but to be kept free from weeds, and in very dry seasons to refresh them 
three or four times a week with water. They will flower the end of June and July, and their fruit ripens in 
autumn. 
When we gaze on the gorgeous eolours of a tropical plant, we naturally think of the climates where it 
springs up without the aid of culture ; imagination makes but tew steps from the little to the great ; and the 
pod of a capsicum is sometimes enough to transport us into the glowing scenery of the two Indies. What 
reader, and still more, what botanist, has not at times wished to wander in the land of the aloe, the palm, 
the fig, the orange, the cocoa, and the pomegranate ? How delightful to cull the wild flowers of a region 
where every thicket is adorned with plants, which, in England, if they exist at all, exist only by the sickly 
aid of the stove ! The painted plumage of the birds, the gales that breathe perfume, and, in short, the luxu- 
riance of nature in all her varied modes, might seem to leave nothing to desire. But, alas ! the picture has 
its dark side, for India is not Paradise. That thicket is the lair of the tiger ; each blast which passes over 
yonder swamp carries fever on its wings. The European, shattered by disease, has little relish for the land- 
scapes around him; and as he tosses on his couch, sighs for the green lanes of his boyhood. The botanist, 
on the other hand, whose destiny confines him to the less brilliant scenery of Britain, wanders with greater 
safety and probably, with greater pleasure. The changes of our English climate are to be complained of by 
