CAPSICUMS

bushy, much-branched plants, cultivated in nearly every part of the world, for they have spread around the globe from their native home in tropical America and to-day run wild in the tropies of the Orient. There are two or more species, divisible into many varieties. The small-fruited kinds, generally the most pungent, are best known popularly as ‘‘chilies,’’ and the larger as ‘‘peppers.’’ ““Chilies’’? are used whole in vinegars and pickles, and ground into eavenne pepper; ‘*neppers’’ are eaten as a vegetable and ground into ordinary red pepper and paprika. The pungency of the capsicum is formed in the ti ues enclosing the seeds, but it pa es by contact to other parts of the fruit. See Curur, Paprika, Pepper, Peppers as a VeceTasie, and Tarasco; also the color-page facing 387. CARAMBOLA (also called the Coromandel Gooseberry in India), a fragrant Asiatic fruit ranging from the size of a hen’s egg to that of a large orange, of oval five-angled shape, with a thin, smooth, generally yellow, coat. As its flavor varies from sweet to acid it is consumed in numerous ways, both green and ripe,—raw,; cooked, and in chutneys. It is cultivated to a small extent in southern California and more freely in the West Indies.