Capsicum L., Sp. pl. 1: 188. 1753.

Barboza, Gloria E., Garcia, Carolina Carrizo, Bianchetti, Luciano de Bem, Romero, Maria V. & Scaldaferro, Marisel, 2022, Monograph of wild and cultivated chili peppers (Capsicum L., Solanaceae), PhytoKeys 200, pp. 1-423 : 1

Capsicum L., Sp. pl. 1: 188. 1753.

Capsicum section Decameris Bitter, Abh. Naturwiss. Vereins Bremen 24(2): 293. 1919. Type: C. dusenii Bitter

Capsicum section Capsicum , Huitième Congr. Int. Bot. Paris. Comptes Rend. Séances Rapp. & Commun. 1954, sect.4: 73. 1956. Type: C. annuum L.

Type.

C. annuum L. (lectotype, designated by Britton 1918, pg. 338).

Description.

Shrubs, subshrubs, rarely trees, vines or short-lived perennials or annuals, occasionally with a thick lignified xylopodium, glabrous or glabrescent or sparsely to densely pubescent with simple, branched, eglandular or glandular, uniseriate trichomes. Stems woody at the base, sometimes with fissured bark and lenticels; young stems angled, herbaceous, usually weak and fragile and occasionally somewhat scrambling. Sympodial units difoliate or unifoliate, the leaves usually geminate, blades simple, entire, concolorous or discolorous, glabrous to densely pubescent with eglandular and/or glandular simple or branched uniseriate trichomes; petioles generally well-developed. Inflorescences axillary, usually unbranched (rarely branched), with few to many (up to 20 or more) flowers clustered or, more rarely, on short rachis or spaced along an elongate rachis, sometimes with flowers solitary or paired. Flowers 5-merous (4-8-merous in domesticated species), actinomorphic, all perfect. Pedicels erect, slightly spreading or pendent, geniculate at their distal end or non-geniculate. Calyx truncate, entire, circular or five-angled in outline, often with 3-10 appendages. Corolla stellate, rotate-stellate, campanulate or campanulate-urceolate, entirely white, yellow, violet or fuchsia or with greenish-yellow and/or maroons or purple spots within, rarely entirely greenish-white or mostly purple, the lobes spreading or reflexed at anthesis, usually with interpetalar membrane. Stamens five (up to eight in domesticated species), usually equal (rarely unequal), the filaments glabrous and broadened at the base to form a staminal plaque fused to the corolla base, each plaque with two short lateral auricles, the anthers dorsifixed, ellipsoid or ovoid, yellow, cream or blue to purple, connivent in pre-anthesis, usually free when mature, dehiscent by longitudinal slits. Gynoecium usually bicarpellate, rarely 3-4-carpellate; ovary superior, glabrous, subglobose to ovoid (rarely ellipsoid), with an annular nectary at the base; styles straight or slightly curved, cylindrical or clavate, glabrous, commonly exserted beyond the anthers, sometimes heteromorphic (long, medium and short styles); stigma globose or discoid, sometimes somewhat bilobed, finely papillate. Fruit glabrous berry, globose, subglobose or somewhat elongate, the mesocarp juicy, the pericarp red, orange-red, greenish-golden yellow or, rarely, dark burgundy or purple-blue at maturity (in domesticated species, fruits of various shapes and colours), pungent or not; fruiting pedicels erect or deflexed; fruiting calyx discoid or campanulate, not accrescent or slightly accrescent. Seeds flattened to slightly angled, mostly C- or D-shaped, subglobose or ellipsoid (rarely reniform or teardrop-shaped), pale yellow to yellow, brownish-yellow to brown or brownish-black to black, seed coat smooth, reticulate or reticulate marginally tuberculate. Stone cells absent or present, if present, not more than six. Embryo usually imbricate (less frequently annular or coiled); endosperm firm, whitish and relatively abundant. Chromosome number: 2n = 24, 26 (see Table 2 ).

Distribution

(Fig. 19 ). Species of Capsicum are native to temperate, subtropical and tropical regions in the Americas, growing from southern United States of America to central Argentina and Brazil. Five taxa are widely cultivated elsewhere.

Figures

Figure 19. Capsicum geographic distribution. Georeferenced collection points of all wild Capsicum species / varieties. Circles are coloured by clades (Andean: orange; Atlantic Forest: bright green; Flexuosum: bright light blue; Caatinga: lilac; Longidentatum: dark blue; Bolivian: yellow; Purple corolla: red; Tovarii: fuchsia; Baccatum: dark green; Annuum: pale light blue).