Capsicum L.

Erect or clambering short-lived perennial herbs; stems sometimes angled, glabrous or pubescent with simple, sometimes glandular hairs. Leaves simple, entire or weakly toothed, mostly ovate or elliptical; abruptly or gradually narrowed into a slightly winged petiole; minor leaves present or not. Inflorescence one or a few flowers fascicled in the leaf axil; the flowering pedicels mostly downward curved, erect or curved in fruit, sometimes angled. Flowers with the calyx cyathiform or short tubular, truncate or with 5 or 10 short teeth, sometimes accrescent but not enclosing the fruit, rarely with an annular thickening or ferrule around the base; the corolla small, yellow, white or bluish, sometimes spotted, deeply lobed; the stamens 5, equal, the filaments inserted at the base of the corolla tube, the anthers yellow or purple, dehiscing longitudinally; the ovary glabrous, 2-loculed, many-ovuled, the stigma puntiform or capitate. Fruit a dry, coriaceous to fleshy berry with large air spaces in the locules, bright purple, red, orange, yellow or white, comestible. Seeds flattened-lenticular, yellow (Panama), small; embryo curved around the periphery of the seed; the endosperm fleshy.

Several species widely cultivated in temperate and tropical areas throughout the world as vegetables or pungent condiments (Chili, Paprika, Cayennne Pepper, Red and Green Peppers), or as ornamentals.