Capsicum genus origins in South America and spread by capsaicin-immune birds

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Key facts

• All chilies belong to the genus Capsicum in the Solanaceae family, which also includes potato, tomato, eggplant and tobacco; the genus has over 30 species of perennial shrubs bearing berry fruits.
• Capsaicin is the alkaloid that gives chilies their pungency and is unique to the genus; it is detectable at a dilution of one part in 11 million.
• Scoville heat units come from a test invented in 1912 by Wilbur Scoville, who dissolved peppers in alcohol and mixed the extract into sugar water for panel tasting; modern measurement uses high-pressure liquid chromatography.
• Heat scale cited: bell pepper 0, poblano 1,000-1,500, jalapeno 4,000-8,500, Tabasco 30,000-50,000, habanero 100,000-350,000, Carolina Reaper over 1.5 million units.
• Capsaicin is synthesized in the placenta (inner fruit surface) and, in superhot varieties, also in the pericarp.
• Traditionally the genus origin was placed in northern Bolivia and southern Brazil based on wild diversity; a recent phylogenetic study based on new genetic sequencing puts the split of Capsicum from the Solanum clade about 19 million years ago in the region of modern Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, with northward spread around 10 million years ago.
• Fruit-eating birds are immune to capsaicin and disperse seeds after ingestion (ornithochory), which accounts for endemic pepper species in the Galapagos and native species on Caribbean islands.
• Literature generally dates chili domestication to between 7,000 and 5,000 BCE, making peppers among the oldest domesticated crops in the Americas; chilies were domesticated multiple times from several different species.

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