Capsicum annuum L.

Solanaceae, H. heine. Flora of West Tropical Africa 2. 1963

Morphology General Habit

Stout herb 2-5 ft. high, much branched, angular, glabrous stems

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers

Flowers white or greenish

Morphology Reproductive morphology Fruits

Fruits red

Note

Cultivated.

Distribution

Biogeografic region: Amazonia, Andean, Guiana Shield, Caribbean, Orinoquia, Pacific. Elevation range: 5–1700 m a.s.l. Cultivated in Colombia. Naturalised in Colombia. Colombian departments: Amazonas, Antioquia, Bogotá DC, Bolívar, Boyacá, Cauca, Cesar, Chocó, Cundinamarca, Guainía, Huila, Magdalena, Meta, Nariño, Norte de Santander, Quindío, Risaralda, Tolima, Valle del Cauca, Vaupés, Vichada.

Habit

Herb, Shrub, Subshrub.

Conservation

IUCN Red List Assessment (2021): LC.

Ecology

Habitat according IUCN Habitats Classification: forest and woodland, savanna, shrubland, native grassland, wetlands (inland), artificial - terrestrial.

Vernacular

Ají, Ají pimienta, Ají-pique, Bia (Cubeo), Chiplín, Kutupí, Pimiento

Kew Species Profiles

General Description

This species includes a wide variety of peppers, including chilli peppers used in curries and sweet bell peppers used in salads.

A bewildering variety of colourful and spicy fruits make Capsicum peppers instantly recognisable to both gardeners and chefs. Originally from South and Central America, their popularity continues to grow across the world due to their ease of cultivation, frequently sharp taste and attractive appearance.

There are more than 200 common names in use for this species. The most common include chilli pepper, paprika (sweet varieties); bell pepper, cayenne, halapenos, chitlepin (hot varieties); and Christmas peppers (ornamental). Capsicum annuum should not be confused with 'black pepper', Piper nigrum, which belongs to a distantly related plant family (Piperaceae).

Species Profile

Geography and distribution

Wild ancestors of Capsicum annuum evolved in Bolivia and southern Brazil, probably long before human habitation. Archaeological research estimates that they were first domesticated at least 6,100 years ago.

Numerous varieties were known to the Aztecs in Mexico before the Spanish arrived. Christopher Columbus brought seeds to Europe, and Capsicum annuum began to be planted extensively in Portuguese colonies in Africa, India and Asia. It is now grown around the world, both commercially and domestically.

Description

An attractive, upright shrub usually less than 1 m tall, with small, white, pendent flowers and elongated, yellow, orange or red fruits (berries). It can be distinguished from other types of domesticated peppers by flowers that are solitary rather than in groups, and filaments (thread-like stalks supporting the anther) that are not purple.

Capsicum annuum can be difficult to separate from the cultivated C. chinense (the hottest pepper) and C. frutescens (Tabasco pepper) and their morphological features can overlap. These three species share the same ancestral gene pool and are sometimes called the 'annuum-chinense-frutescens complex'.

The varieties and cultivars of Capsicum annuum are classified on the basis of their fruit shapes. There are so many different kinds (several thousand) that nobody knows exactly how many there are. More and more local variants are appearing in cultivation across the world because existing varieties cross-pollinate easily.

Uses - fruits

Capsicum fruits have been part of the human diet for at least 10,000 years. The fruits of non-pungent (sweet) varieties are eaten raw in salads or cooked as a vegetable. They are rich sources of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and vitamin A.

Pungent types, including chillies, are used as a condiment or spice for seasoning. The dried fruits are ground to a powder (paprika) and used as an ingredient in curry powder. The pungency is mainly due to the presence of chemical compounds called capsaicinoids, which deter most mammals from eating the fruit. Birds, however, will eat them without harm (and indeed help to disperse the seeds).

Uses - pepper extracts

Pepper extracts are used to flavour ginger beer, and are used in pharmaceutical products for treating conditions such as athlete's foot and arthritis. Maya Indians used pepper spray as a weapon against their enemies, and today some police forces around the world use it to control unruly individuals.

Uses - decorations

Ornamental varieties of Capsicum annuum (the fruits of which are also edible) are grown primarily for the decorative value of their fruit, often displaying fruits of four or five colours simultaneously on one plant. The popular 'Christmas peppers' were originally available at Christmas time and had green and red fruits.

How hot is a 'chilli'?

In 1912, a pharmacist named Scoville developed an index for measuring the pungency of peppers. Scoville Heat Units (SHU) are still used today and measure by how much a chilli extract has to be diluted in sugar syrup before its heat becomes undetectable to a panel of expert tasters.

Sweet (or bell) peppers rank at 0 SHU, while New Mexico green chillies are mildly pungent at 1,500 SHU. The 'hottest' of the world's chillies exceed 80,000 SHU, but even they are relatively mild compared to the hottest of them all (the 'infinity chilli'), which registers over 1,000,000 SHU. Imagine that next time you have a curry!

Millennium Seed Bank - Saving seeds

The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership aims to save plant life worldwide, focusing on plants under threat and those of most use in the future. Seeds are dried, packaged and stored at a sub-zero temperature in our seed bank vault.

There are two collections of Capsicum annuum seeds stored in Kew's Millennium Seed Bank based at Wakehurst in West Sussex.

This species at Kew

Specimens of the fruits and seeds of Capsicum annuum are held in Kew's Economic Botany Collection in the Sir Joseph Banks Building and are available to researchers by appointment.

Distribution

Bolivia, Brazil

Ecology

Tropical deciduous forest. Widely cultivated.

Conservation

Widespread; Least Concern (LC) according to IUCN Red List criteria.

Hazards

Juice (of the fruit) can cause dermatitis; avoid contact with eyes.

Bernal, R., Gradstein, S.R. & Celis, M. (eds.). 2015. Catálogo de plantas y líquenes de Colombia. Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá. http://catalogoplantasdecolombia.unal.edu.co

Distribution

Nativa y cultivada en Colombia; Alt. 5 - 1700 m.; Amazonia, Andes, Guayana y Serranía de La Macarena, Islas Caribeñas, Llanura del Caribe, Orinoquia, Pacífico, Valle del Magdalena.

Morphology General Habit

Hierba, subarbusto, arbusto

Conservation

Preocupación Menor

M. Thulin et al. Flora of Somalia, Vol. 1-4 [updated 2008] https://plants.jstor.org/collection/FLOS

Morphology General Habit

Herb or shrub, up to c. 1 m tall, almost glabrous

Morphology Leaves

Leaves petiolate; blades ovate to lanceolate, cuneate at the base, acute at the apex, with entire margins

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers

Flowers solitary or in few-flowered clusters

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Calyx

Calyx 2–3 mm long

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Corolla

Corolla white, c. 1 cm long

Morphology Reproductive morphology Fruits

Berry mostly red but may be orange, yellow, green or black, very variable in shape and size.

Distribution

Cultivated in N1, S2, S3 and surely also elsewhere

Vernacular

Filfil-guduud (Somali).

Note

Numerous cultivars of “peppers” exist, with everything from sweet to extremely pungent fruits. Native to Mexico and South America, but now widely cultivated and naturalised.

Solanaceae, Jennifer M Edmonds. Oliganthes, Melongena & Monodolichopus, Maria S. Vorontsova & Sandra Knapp. Flora of Tropical East Africa. 2012

Type

Type: Herb. Clifford: 59, Capsicum 1 (BM!, lecto.) designated by D’Arcy in Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 60: 591 (1974). [See Jarvis, Order out of Chaos: 382 (2007) for a discussion of the controversy surrounding the selection of this sheet as the lectotype]

Morphology General Habit

Shrubby herb or small shrub, to 1.5 m, often short-lived.

Morphology Stem

Stems ridged, angular, woody, erect, much-branched, pilose when young, glabrescent

Morphology Leaves

Leaves membranaceous, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 2.2–8(–12) × 1–4(–8.5) cm, bases cuneate and decurrent, margins entire, apices acuminate, surfaces sparsely pilose, denser on margins, veins and midribs, with pilose domatia on lower surfaces, hairs as stems; petioles 1–3.5(–5.5) cm, pilose

Morphology Reproductive morphology Inflorescences

Inflorescences usually 1-flowered in branch or leaf axil, rarely 2-flowered; flowers white to greenish- or bluish-white; pedicels erect or recurved and slender thickening apically in flower, 7–20 mm long, recurved in fruit when thickened beneath calyx and often woody, 1.2–3.5 cm long, glabrescent

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Calyx

Calyx shallowly cupulate to campanulate, 2–3.2 × (1.6)2–5.5 mm apically, with 5 narrowly triangular lobes 0.5–1.3 × 0.3–0.6 mm, persistent but only slightly enlarged in fruit, sparsely pilose with spreading hairs to glabrous

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Corolla

Corolla stellate, 5–9 × ± 11 mm diameter with short tube ± 1.2 mm long; lobes ovate to triangular, 2.8–5 × 2–4 mm, spreading or reflexed after anthesis, shortly puberulous on margins and lobe apices otherwise glabrescent externally, glabrous internally

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Androecium Stamens

Stamens with filaments 1–2 mm long, glabrous; anthers blue to purple, oblong, 1.5–2(–2.5) × 0.6–1(–1.4) mm, basifixed, exserted

Morphology Reproductive morphology Flowers Gynoecium Ovary

Ovary brown, ovoid, 1.5–2 × 1.1–1.6 mm, glabrous; disc 1.5 mm broad and 0.5 mm high; style filiform, 3–5.5 mm long, glabrous, exserted ± 1 mm, straight or geniculate; stigma 0.2–0.5 mm diameter

Morphology Reproductive morphology Fruits

Fruit usually pendulous, green, yellow, orange, red or blackish, globose, ovoid to narrowly conical or elongated berries, (1.1–)2.4–5.2(–15) × (1.2–)1.5–2.2(–4.5) cm, smooth, often apically acute and sometimes depressed, subtended by broadly cupulate calyx 2–4 × 7–15 mm, which often semi-reflexed away from berry base

Morphology Reproductive morphology Seeds

Seeds yellow to yellowish-orange, orbicular to discoidal, 3.2–5.5 × 3.2–4.2 mm, with thickened margin, foveolate/reticulate

Figures

Fig 12/7 & 8, p 60

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/100895534/172969027

Conservation

LC - least concern

Bernal, R., G. Galeano, A. Rodríguez, H. Sarmiento y M. Gutiérrez. 2017. Nombres Comunes de las Plantas de Colombia. http://www.biovirtual.unal.edu.co/nombrescomunes/

Vernacular

ají, ají ajuja, ají amarillo, ají amarillo de culebra, ají bejuco, ají blanco, ají botón, ají bravo, ají camarón, ají carcarón de tiro, ají cascarón, ají catuto, ají cerbatano, aji charapilla, aji cheroso, ají chiche de perro, ají chichegato, ají chicheperro, ají chichi de perro, ají chichiperro, ají chicle, ají chiquito, ají chirca, ají chirel, ají chirere, ají chivatillo, ají chivato, ají churere, ají clavito, ají colorado, ají culebra, ají de agua, ají de ajoja, ají de babilla, ají de bejuco, ají de blanco, ají de blancos, ají de castaño, ají de chuzo, ají de colmillo de culebra, ají de coro, ají de curripaco, ají de garza, ají de guraco pesado, ají de gusano, ají de mesa, ají de mico nocturno, ají de monte, ají de pajarito, ají de pájaro, ají de perro, ají de pescado, ají de salón, ají de sapo grande, ají de venado, ají de yubiye, ají de yulo, ají de zorro, ají del blanco, ají diablito, ají diente, ají dulce, ají dulce pimentón, ají dulce redondo, ají fino, ají frío, ají grande, ají grillo, ají guaguau, ají gusanito, ají gusano, ají gusano dulce, ají huevo de araguana, ají huevo de arapiana, ají largo, ají largo de blanco, ají macusare amarillo, ají malagueta, ají medicinal, ají miracielo, ají mirapalcielo, ají moradito, ají negro, ají negro blanco, ají ojito de pescado, ají ojo de charapa, ají ojo de pescado, ají ojo de sapo, ají paja, ají pajarita, ají pajarito, ají pálido, ají pecas, ají pequeñito, ají pequeño, ají perfumado, ají pescado, ají picante, ají pico de pájaro, ají pimentón, ají pimentón largo, ají pimienta, ají pimiento, ají pique, aji piquiucho, ají pucado, ají puro, ají quiñapira, ají ral, ají redondo, ají rojo, ají suave, ají tablachito, ají topito, ají tripa de pescado, ají trompito, ají trompo, ají verde, areñe, cabeza de grillo, chiche, chicheperro, chichí de perro, chimbote, chirca, chirere, cimarrón, conguito, curripaati, dedo de sapo, diente chucha, diente de chucha, diente de tigre, duao, huevo de sardina, ibaprehumo, jibiray, largo, machucara, malagueta, murupí, nuche de perro, ojito de Lucía, ojito de pescado, ojo de acarabazu, ojo de caimán, ojo de cambico, ojo de carachama, ojo de charapa, ojo de pescado, pico de piapoco, pimentón, pimentón dulce, pimiento, pimientón, pipí de perro, pipicha, pique, piquiucho, redondeo, tomate, trompito

Extinction risk predictions for the world's flowering plants to support their conservation (2024). Bachman, S.P., Brown, M.J.M., Leão, T.C.C., Lughadha, E.N., Walker, B.E. https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.19592

Conservation

Predicted extinction risk: not threatened. Confidence: confident

Use Environmental

Environmental uses.

Use Gene Sources

Used as gene sources.

Use Food

Used for food.

Use Materials

Used as material.

Use Medicines

Medical uses.

Use Poisons

Poisons.

Use Social

Social uses.

Use

Food, flavouring, ornamental.

Use

Cultivated as a vegetable and condiment