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As so often is the case with plant nomenclature, the term annuum — meaning ‘annual’ — applied to peppers is a complete misnomer, as they are in fact perennial shrubs or shrub-likes. This species includes the sweet (bell/block) and wax peppers, as well as most of the most commonly known, present day chile varieties like New Mexico, Jalapeno and Anaheim.
The most likely founding father for the Capsicum annuum species alive today is the wild chiltepin or chiltecpin (Capsicum annuum var. aviculare) which botanists assess to be the earliest surviving form of chile that developed in the northern regions of South America and then spread throughout South and Central America and up to what is now known as Mexico and the United States’ border country. In fact, some believe that the chiltepin (or Chile Tepin) has much the widest distribution worldwide of any chile from the western hemisphere.
The Capsicum annuum species is likely the most extensively cultivated in the entire world, domestically as well as commerially, being the primary species grown in India, Mexico, China, Hungary, Korea and the East Indies archipelago. Promiscuous to a fault, the entire species crosspollinates eagerly with any of its kind, which has resulted in a plethora of (local) varieties throughout the world, wherever Capsicum annuum are grown.
Likewise, naming of varieties is hugely varied, and hard to pinpoint, with, for example, several hundred names for peppers being current in Mexico while only one or two dozen annuum varieties are being grown there to which all these names are made to apply. A cataloguer’s nightmare or beautiful adventure, according to taste or point of view.
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