Capsicum leptopodum

Capsicum leptopodum is a wild Brazilian shrub of wet tropical habitat. Kew currently accepts the name Capsicum leptopodum and gives its native range as Brazil, including Ceará and Rio de Janeiro. A major current taxonomic conflict exists, however: World Flora Online and the 2022 Capsicum monograph instead accept Capsicum muticum and treat Capsicum leptopodum as its synonym.

The taxon first appears in the literature as Capsicum villosum var. muticum in 1846, and the name Bassovia leptopoda was published in 1852 from Rio de Janeiro material tied to Sellow's 1819 collection. In the modern monographic treatment, the plant is shown as a densely hairy shrub from degraded Atlantic Forest, with dense indument on the stems and leaves, geniculate pedicels, and a truncate calyx lacking appendages or bearing only minute appendages up to about 0.2 mm long.

Its corolla is white to pale yellow with a greenish-yellow centre, while any purple pigmentation is reduced to faint lines or small spots near the centre. The fruit are treated as non-pungent and probably yellowish-green at maturity, with brown to brownish-black seeds. The combination of dense hairiness, a nearly toothless calyx, sparse purple marking in the flower, and muted yellowish-green fruit is what gives this taxon its distinct identity among the Atlantic Forest wild capsicums.