quality:correction, structural:summarization, structural:expansion, information:extraction
Origins

Capsicum plants originated in modern-day Peru and Bolivia, and have been a part of human diets since about 7,500 BC. They are one of the oldest cultivated crops in the Americas. Origins of cultivating chili peppers have been traced to east-central Mexico some 6,000 years ago, although, according to researchers at the University of California Berkeley in 2014, chili plants were first cultivated independently across different locations in the Americas including highland Peru and Bolivia, central Mexico, and the Amazon. They were one of the first self-pollinating crops cultivated in Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America.

Peru has the highest variety of cultivated Capsicum diversity because it is a center of diversification where varieties of all five domesticates were introduced, grown, and consumed in pre-Columbian times. The largest diversity of wild Capsicum peppers is consumed in Bolivia. Bolivian consumers distinguish two basic forms: ulupicas, species with small round fruits including C. eximium, C. cardenasii, C. eshbaughii, and C. caballeroi landraces; and arivivis with small elongated fruits including C. baccatum var. baccatum and C. chacoense varieties.