Spec. Plant. Willd. i. 159. Cl. 2. Ord.3. Diandria Trigynia. Nat. ord. Piperaceae. G. 74. Calyx none. Corolla none. Berry one-seeded. Sp. 1. P. nigrum. Black Pepper. Med. Pot. 3d edit. 721. t. 246-

Molago-Codi. Rheede, Hort. Malabar, vii. 23.t.12. Marsden, p. 105. Sp. 3. P. Cubeba. Cubebs. Sketches Civil and Military of Java, Sp. 12. P. longum. Long Pepper. Med. Pot. 3d edit 724. t. 247.

Cattu-tirpali. Rheede, Hort. Malabar, vii. 27.t.14.

1. Piper nigrum.1

Officinal. Piper nigrum, Lond. Piperis nigri fructus,

Edin. Piper nigrum; semina, Dub. Black Pepper.

• Spn. Le Poivrier commun (F.), Gemeine pfeffer (G.), Gemeene peper (Dutch), Swarteller Stark peppar (Swed.), Pepe nero (I.), Pimienta (S.), Maine (Japan.), Molago-Codi (Malabar), Fulful-filfil (Arab.), Mirch (H.), Maricha (San.), Mellaghoo (Tarn.), Gumuneris (Cyng.), Lada (Malay), Maricha (Jav.).

This species of pepper is a native of the East Indies; and is very abundantly cultivated at Malacca, Java, and Sumatra, whence the. greater part of Europe is supplied. The French introduced the culture of the pepper into Cayenne in the 18th century, and succeeded. This Piper is a climbing, or rather radicating, plant, the stem being round, smooth, jointed, and swelling towards each joint, woody, slender, branched, and from eight to twelve feet in length. The leaves are petiolate at the joints of the branches, cordate, entire, pointed, seven-nerved, and of a dark green colour. The flowers are dioecious, sessile, whitish, or glaucous, small, each supported by a scale: they coyer, thickly, a cylindrical spadix, without any regular calyx or corolla. The filaments are two or more, flat, awl-shaped; and the anthers roundish. The germen is ovate, and crowned with a deeply divided stigma: the fruit

Diosccridis, is, strictly speaking, a nut, resembling a globular berry: it is at first green, changing as it ripens to a bright red colour.

In Sumatra, the pepper vines are propagated by cuttings or suckers. The natives choose for their pepper gardens a level piece of ground, moderately elevated, covered with young wood, which they burn down. These gardens are generally near the banks of rivers. In growing, the pepper vines are supported by props, called Chinkareens, which are plants of Morinda citrifolia, or of an Erythrina, at the root of each of which two vines are planted, and into the bark of which the vines send radicular claws, by which the shoots are supported; but whether any nutriment is taken up by these from the living props is uncertain.1 At Borneo, poles instead of chinkareens are used; but Marsden says the latter are preferred, both because they last as long as the pepper vines, and their top branches, which are not lopped off, shade the vines. An argillaceous soil is the best. The plants are three years old before they bear fruit, and they bear for eight years. After the seventh year, when the plant is considered in its prime, it continues in full bearing for three or four years, and then declines. "Fruit," says Marsden, "has been gathered from some at the age of twenty years, but such instances are uncommon." The berries are four or five months in coming to maturity; are gathered as soon as any of them redden; but the best pepper is gathered green, if it be of full size.

It is then spread upon mats to dry, and trodden to separate the fruit from the stalk; when they become black, and more or less shrivelled. In good seasons each vine yields about fifty pounds of pepper. The vines yield two crops yearly; the first in September, the second in March. White pepper is the ripe and perfect berries, freed of their outer coat by means of a preparation of lime and mustard oil, called chinam, applied before it is dried. The pepper is now also cultivated to a considerable extent in India. If the pepper be not of a proper age when gathered, it shrivels greatly, and, on removal from place to place, falls into dust. Advantage is taken of this fact to ascertain the proper time of gathering the fruit; for if the pepper have been gathered too soon, it may be almost reduced to dust by rubbing it between the hands, but, if it be of mature age, and sound, no effect is produced on it by the friction. When it is over-ripe, and has fallen to the ground, the usual exterior coat falls off; and the pepper becomes an inferior white pepper.

1 Dr. Roxburgh began the cultivation of black pepper in the Circars in 1787. The prop trees he used were the moochy wood tree, Erythrina corallodendron. The French also found that this species of Erythrina and the Crescentia cujete are the only props to which the pepper takes kindly, and on which the fruit ripens-Vide Ann. du Mus. d Hist. Nat. L i. p. 88. One thousand plants yield from 500 lbs. to 1000lbs. of pepper.

Qualities,-Black pepper has an aromatic odour, and a hot, pungent taste. Its virtues are entirely extracted by ether and alcohol, and partially by water. The aqueous infusion is brown, and reddens vegetable blues; and the decoction of the ground pepper forms a precipitate with infusion of galls, which dissolves again when the fluid is heated to 120°. When the alcoholic infusion is distilled, a green, resinous, oily matter is left, which appears to be the source of the odour and the taste of the pepper. M. Pelletier1 ascertained, that when this green fatty matter is washed in warm water, and again dissolved in hot alcohol, it deposits, after some days, a number of small crystals, which, when purified, are insipid, and have the singular property of imparting a blood-red colour to strong sulphuric acid. This substance, which has no affinity with alkalies, M. Pelletier named piperin: it crystallizes in four-sided prisms, of which the two opposite are broadest; the prism is terminated by an inclined face. The crystals are nearly colourless, or pale yellow, semi-translucent, tasteless; insoluble in cold water, sparingly in hot water; but soluble in alcohol and ether.

Pelletier2 found in pepper the following components: - Piperin; a very acrid, concrete oil, on which the acrimony of the pepper depends; a volatile balsamic oil; a gummy-coloured matter; extractive; malic and tartaric acids; starch; lignin; and earthy and alkaline salts. According to Pelletier piperin is a compound of carbon 70.51 + hydrogen 6.80 + oxygen 18.28 + nitrogen 4.51 = 100. Ether digested on powdered pepper takes up three parts in ten; and, when evaporated on water, deposits an intensely hot, biting, yellowish, oily resin, with the odour of the pepper, and insipid extractive matter, Black pepper, as sold in powder, is generally adulterated; often with the powdered husks of mustard, which are openly sold by the makers of mustard for this purpose, under the title of P. D. (Pepper dust).

1 Annates de Chim. et Phys. xvi. p. 20.

2 Dr. Meli has proposed the following method of procuring pure piperin. Digest lb j. of black pepper, powdered, in O jss. of alcohol at 36°, in a gentle heat. Then raise it to ebullition; after which leave it to cool; and having poured off the fluid, repeat the operation with a fresh quantity of alcohol. Pour upon the mixed tinctures O j. of distilled water and f jss. of hydrochloric acid. A fatty precipitate will fall down, which should be separated by filtration. The crystals which will form on the sides of the vessels and on the filter are pure piperin. Adding water till a precipitate ceases to be produced, a fresh quantity is obtained.-Ann.

Univ. di Med. t. 27.