Bell pepper

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iBell pepper

A variety of colored bell peppers

Green peppers

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Subclass:	Asteridae
Order:	Solanales
Family:	Solanaceae
Genus:	Capsicum
Species:	C. annuum

Binomial name

Capsicum annuum
L.


Heat : Mild (SR: 0)

For green peppercorns, see Black pepper.

Bell Pepper is a cultivar group of the species Capsicum annuum, as are the jalapeño and pimento.

1 Nomenclature
2 Varieties
3 Nutritional value
4 See also

[edit] Nomenclature

The bell pepper refers to the actual fruit of the capsicum plant. The term bell pepper is only used in North America. In British English, it is simply referred to as a "pepper" , whereas in many Commonwealth of Nations countries, such as India, Malaysia and Australia, it is called "capsicum". Bell peppers are commonly called "paprika" in areas such as Scandinavia, Hungary and Indonesia; "Pīman" in Japan; and "mangoes" (or "mangos") [1] in parts of the U.S. around southern Ohio and northern Kentucky though they are unrelated to the tropical fruit known properly as a mango. In Russia it is commonly called болгарский перец (bolgarskiy perets), meaning Bulgarian pepper. In France, it is called poivron, with the same root as poivre (meaning black pepper). Bell peppers contain a recessive gene that eliminates the capsaicin in the fruit.

[edit] Varieties

The color can be green, red, yellow, orange and, more rarely, white, purple, blue and brown, depending on when they are harvested. Green peppers are unripe bell peppers, while the others are all ripe, with the color variation based on cultivar selection. Because they are unripe, green peppers are less sweet and slightly more bitter than yellow, orange, or red peppers, which all have a rather similar hot taste. Green bell peppers also tend to have a significantly lower retail value, making them more common in restaurants than other bell peppers. The taste of ripe peppers can also vary with growing conditions and post-harvest storage treatment; the sweetest are fruit allowed to ripen fully on the plant in full sunshine, while fruit harvested green and after-ripened in storage are less sweet. Peppers were grown in Central and South America in pre-Columbian times. Pepper seeds were later carried to Spain in 1493 and from there spread to other European and Asian countries.