This is a short, checked reading list for Capsicum. Every journal citation below was verified against Crossref or PubMed in September 2026, volume and page numbers included. The previous version of this page carried wrong page ranges and at least two references no database can find. This one runs shorter and correct instead.

Which single book should a serious grower own?

Bosland and Votava, Peppers: Vegetable and Spice Capsicums, second edition, CABI 2012. It covers botany, genetics, seed technology, field production and postharvest in one volume, and it is the book that extension agronomists actually cite. Andrews, Peppers: The Domesticated Capsicums (University of Texas Press, 1984, revised 1995) handles the history and the dispersal story that Bosland skips. DeWitt and Bosland, The Complete Chile Pepper Book (Timber Press, 2009) sits between the two and carries the photography. Hunziker's The Genera of Solanaceae (2001) places the genus among its relatives and matters if you argue about family-level placement.

Taxonomy and phylogeny

Start with the monograph. Barboza and colleagues published a 423-page revision of the genus in PhytoKeys 200 in 2022, and Kew's accepted list of 43 species follows it. Our own Kew species list reproduces that treatment with native ranges.

Genomes and pungency genetics

Two independent pepper genomes landed within weeks of each other in 2014, and people mix them up constantly. Kim and colleagues published in Nature Genetics; Qin and colleagues published in PNAS. They are separate papers with separate page numbers.

Crossing barriers between species

Anyone attempting a C. pubescens cross needs the incompatibility literature before spending a season on it.

Disease and pests

Where do I get seed of a wild species?

Two places, and neither is a seed shop. USDA ARS GRIN-Global distributes accessions to anyone who can state a research or breeding purpose, and its passport data tells you where each collection came from. Genesys aggregates genebanks outside the United States and fills gaps GRIN cannot. Kew's Plants of the World Online settles which name to request under. Our seed library page covers the donation route for material already in circulation.

Production guides worth keeping open

Citations to stop repeating

These circulate on forums and in AI-written guides. None of them checks out.

Circulating citation.Problem.
Qin et al. 2014, Nature Genetics 46: 270-278.Wrong journal. Qin is PNAS 111: 5135-5140; the Nature Genetics paper is Kim et al.
Onus and Pickersgill 2004, Ann. Bot. 94: 605-613.Wrong pages. The paper runs 289-295.
Ristaino and Johnston 1999, Plant Disease 83: 1220-1228.Wrong pages. The paper runs 1080-1089.
Tong and Bosland 1999, "C. chinense x C. frutescens fertility," Euphytica 109: 1-7.Wrong title and pages. That slot holds the C. tovarii paper at 71-77.
Dogimont et al. 2010, "Interspecific hybridization in Capsicum," Euphytica 168: 107-121.No such paper indexes. Dogimont publishes on melon.
Tripodi and Greco 2018, Plants 7: 72.That article slot belongs to a food-legume paper.

Sources & Further Reading