PEPPER PLANT. 131 



SECTION XXI. 



Pepper Plant, 

 Piper. Linn. 

 The pepper plant genus coulains upwards of fifty known varieties, 

 most of them natives of America or the West Indies, but a few of 

 the Cape. The chief are, piper nigrum, or black pepper, so 

 denominated from the colour of its berries, but which, when stripped 

 of their skin and steeped in water, become white, and then consti- 

 tutes the white pepper of the shops ; piper longum, or long pepper; 

 piper betle, or betel ; and piper cubeba, or cubebs. 



The black or common pepper-plant is chiefly found in Sumatra; 

 usually planted by a thorny tree, round which it creeps and winds 

 like ivy, which it resembles in its leaf, though it is something larger 

 and of a paler green. Having run up a considerable height, the 

 twigs on which the berries hang bend down, and the fruit appears 

 in clusters nearly as large as bunches of grapes, and of much the 

 same figure, but are distinct, like our currants or elder-berries. 

 They produce no fruit till the third or fourth year, after which they 

 bear for the three following years six or seven pound weight of 

 pepper. In the three next years they decrease one third, both in 

 the quantity and size of the pepper, and thus continue decreasing 

 for four or five years longer. When the plant begins to bear, the 

 branches of the tree, through which -it creeps, must be lopped off, 

 lest they intercept the rays of the sun, of which this plant stands 

 much in need. When the clusters of the fruit are formed, care 

 must also be taken to support them with poles, lest the branches 

 should be drawn down by their weight. 



The pepper- plant has commonly a white flower in April, which 

 knots in June ; and the next month the fruit being green and large, 

 the natives make a rich pickle of it, by steeping it in vinegar. In 

 October it is red, in November it begins to grow black, and in De- 

 cember it is all over black, and consequently ripe. This is gene- 

 rally the case, though in some places it is ripe sooner. 



The fruit being ripe, they cut off the clusters, and dry them in 

 the sun, till the berries fall off the stalk, which, notwithstanding the 

 excessive heat, it does not do in less than fifteen days, during which 

 the clusters are turned from side to sidf> and covered up at night* 



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