What's in a (crop) name? Tad Brown asks and answers that question with respect to the history of varieties of peppers grown in the southern United States in a new article, just published in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. Situating the history of crop naming in the larger histories of botany and taxonomy, Brown's analysis is a reminder that expertise in agricultural biology has long bounced between market and experiment station, with consequences for the composition of fields and dinner plates alike.