354 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



A perennial climbing plant with smooth bright green, ovate-cordate leaves, having 

 a pungent, aromatic taste. Leaves large, coriaceous, petioled, obliquely ovate-oblong 

 or rounded ovate-cordate, entire, 5 to 9-nerved, often unequal at the base; flowers in 

 solitary spikes, dioecious, with orbicular peltate bracts; male spikes 7.5 to 15 cm. 

 long; female long-peduncled, in fruiting stout, 2.5 to 12.5 cm. long, pendulous; 

 fruit fleshy, often confluent into a cylindrical fleshy red mass. The leaves resemble 

 those of Piper nigrum, but the fruit is more compact. 



This plant, like many other cultivated species, is variable. Piper siriboa and P. 

 melamiri are forms which were described by Linnaeus as distinct species. Specimens 

 collected in Guam by Haenke were described by Opiz as Piper marianum, but were 

 later called by C. De Candolle Piper betle mariannum.b In the Guam variety the 

 leaves have longer petioles than in the typical form ; are smooth on both sides, mem- 

 branous, rather stiff, with fine pelucid dots, 5-nerved, the central nerve sending 

 forth 011 each side one nerve from above the base and another from the base, oppo- 

 site to each other. 



In Guam it is very extensively cultivated. Cuttings take root readily. An old 

 lady, who made a business of selling betel leaves, brought the writer several cuttings 

 and planted them in his garden. She removed all the leaves but two or three, 

 twined the lower part of the cutting into a hoop-like loop, and covered it with a 

 few inches of soil upon which she laid a flat stone to retain the moisture, leaving the 

 tip of the cutting projecting from beneath the stone. Following her directions I 

 watered my cuttings daily for about a week. New leaves soon began to push forth, 

 and in a short time I had fine vigorous plants climbing up my lemon and lime trees 

 and running over my garden wall. 



The fresh green leaves (mamaon) are chewed by the natives wrapped about a 

 fragment of Areca nut together with a pinch of quicklime. They are agreeably 

 pungent and aromatic, the nut and leaves together tasting somewhat like nutmeg, 

 and giving a spicy odor to the breath. In .Guam the betel takes the place of Piper 

 methysticum, the roots of which, after having been chewed or grated, are made by 

 the Polynesians into the infusion called "kava" or "ava." The kava pepper does 

 not grow in Guam. In islands where it does occur its leaves are occasionally used 

 in place of those of the betel pepper for chewing. 



For the effects of betel chewing and the ceremony attending it see notes under 

 Areca cathecu. It is interesting to observe the resemblance of "pupiilu," the Guam 

 name of the betel pepper, to "pipul" and "pipulmul," the names applied in India 

 and Bengal to Piper longum. 

 REFERENCES: 



Piper betle L. Sp. PI. 1: 28. 1753. 

 Piper gnahamense. GUAM PEPPER. 



A plant resembling the kava pepper (Piper methysticum) of Polynesia. Dioecious; 

 stems erect; leaves long-petioled, round or round-ovate, with the apex shortly 

 protracted-acuminate, the point rather sharp, deeply cordate at the base, smooth 

 above, yellowish-puberulous along the veins on the under surface, membranous, 

 rather stiff, subopaque, finely pelucid-dotted, 9 to 11-nerved; nerves rather promi- 

 nent below, the middle one reaching to the apex, the two next nearly to the apex, 

 the remaining ones finer; petiole sheathing for one-fourth of its length with linear 

 wings attenuated toward the apex into the petiole; spikes of the female plant axil- 

 lary, solitary, densely flowered, nearly equaling the leaves, the peduncle a little 

 shorter than the petioles, sparsely puberulous, the rachis puberulous; bracts round- 

 peltate, petiolate at the center; ovary ovate, glabrous; stigmas 3, rather fleshy, ses- 



Presl, Reliquiae Haenkeanae,- vol. 1, p. 159, 1825. 

 &De CandoKe, Prodromus, vol. 16, pt. 1, p. 360, 1869. 



