Capsicum L.
辣椒屬
Annual or perennial herbs or shrubs; pubescence of simple hairs. Leaves solitary or paired, simple, entire or sinuate; petiolate. Inflorescences solitary or few-flowered clusters at branch forks or leaf axils; peduncle absent; pedicel erect or nodding. Flowers actinomorphic; calyx broadly cupular to campanulate, truncate, sometimes denticulate or with 5 lateral teeth; corolla white, yellow, blue, or violet, campanulate or rotate, divided halfway or more; filaments inserted near the base of the corolla tube, equal, slender, anthers yellow or purplish, ovoid, dehiscing longitudinally; ovary 2- (or 3)-locular; ovules numerous. Fruit a moist berry, sometimes large, erect, nodding, or reflexed, pungent ot not; fruiting calyx sometimes slightly enlarged; seeds numerous, yellowish, discoid; embryo coiled, subperipheral.
About 25 species, all in South America, one or two cosmopolitan, cultivated and naturalized; one species naturalized in Taiwan.
