The chili bell pepper plant belongs to the Solanaceae family, genus Capsicum. At present, there is a great taxonomic complexity around it, with a high divergence in the number of species within the genus.
▶ Scientifically, there are only five species: Capsicum annuum, C. chinense, C. frutescens, C. pubescens and C. baccatum. However, over the years, species and subspecies have been created naturally, so it has a high genetic variability, and one of the latest works include about 30 species, of which about 10 are cultivated for human consumption.
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However, at present, the names of the varieties are adjusted to the five species; in fact, the Scoville scale, which determines the hotness of chili peppers, distributes them in the 5 classifications, due to the fact that the amount of capsiacin varies among each of the specimens regardless of the species.
According to this scale, among the C. annuum are the minor and intermediate ones; in the C. frutescens are all the hot ones; in C. pubescens there is only one that is cultivated in Chile, Bolivia and Peru with an intermediate scale of hotness and in C. chinense, where the hottest in the world are located.
The South American sweet bell pepper is a native variety of Capsicum chinense, C. annuum and C. frutescens, which is cultivated in different regions for the preparation of stews used in empanadas, hallacas, arepas, among other traditional dishes.