Piper, DIANDRIA TRIGYNIA. 155 
plant, (male and female on distinct vines,) till upon examination, I 
foundit was so. Attention to this circumstauce will, I think, reader 
the culture of pepper much more certain, and successful, viz. by 
planting to each prop tree a male and female plant, the male on the 
sides from whence the most prevailing wind blows ; and the female 
on the other. ' 
The vegetable world is full of proofs that the sexual system of the 
immortal Linneus is founded on the soundest principies; aud not a 
` single plant have I ever found in India, that does not corroborate this 
fact. ‘The Arabians from time immemorial knew, that to reader the 
female date-tree prolific, it was necessary to bring it in contact with 
the male; which they do by making a slit in the spathe of the female 
flower, just before it is ready to burst and thrusting therein a branch 
of the male spadix. I have therefore the utmost reason to conclude = 
the pepper vine will be much more productive, if the above mentioned 
circumstance be attended to, by the cultivators. I think, if the Malays 
on Sumatra had known it, the accurate Mr. Marsden, would not 
have neglected mentioning so material a circumstance, when de- 
scribing this plant, and the method of cultivating it there. 
Soon after the above description was made, I found a third vine 
bearing aments with hermaphrodite flowers ; or hermaphrodite and 
female flowers mixed on the same aments. At the same time I found 
that the pepper of the female vine did not ripen properly, but drop- 
ped while green, and immature from the plant, and that when dried it 
had not so much pungency as common pepper, whereas the pepper of 
this third sort ripens perfectly, when dry is exceedingly pungent, and 
has been, by pepper merchants at Madras, reckoned equal, if not su- 
perior to the best pepper of the Malabar Coast, or Ceylon ; conse- 
quently this must be the sort that is found cultivated ; the oM two — 
being, I conjecture, entirely neglected. - : 
This hermaphrodite plant grows wild, with the male and gem 
in the moist, uncultivated, over-run shady vallies, up amongst the $ 
mountains ; and also upon the mountains, where springs k keep 
moist, Such = are common in the cliffs sii the rocks, 
a3 
