CHAPTER IX 



LONG PEPPER 



THERE are two distinct kinds of pepper known as long 

 pepper, and as such sold in the native markets of the 

 East. These are the dried fruit spikes of Piper longum, 

 L., a native of India, and P. afficinarum, L., a native of 

 Java. The former may be called Indian long pepper, 

 the latter Javanese long pepper. Very little has ever 

 been published or recorded as to the history or cultiva- 

 tion of these plants ; although there has been an exten- 

 sive trade in the spice for many centuries, and it is the 

 Indian name for the long pepper from which the word 

 pepper is derived, that is to say the Hindustani 

 "pipat" 



Long pepper was known almost certainly to Theo- 

 phrastus, in the fourth century B.C. Itis mentioned with 

 a rough woodcut by Clusius (Historia aromatum), but 

 he does not seem to have been well acquainted with it. 



Piper longum, L., INDIAN LONG PEPPER 



This plant is a native of Bengal, Nepal, Assam, and 

 Khasiya and southward to Travancore, and is cultivated 

 chiefly in the northern parts of India. It has 

 been occasionally met with in native gardens in 

 Ceylon, but appears to be quite absent from the Malay 

 peninsula and archipelago, where it is replaced by the 

 Javanese long pepper. The climate indeed appears to be 

 too damp for it. 



According to Roxburgh, it is not a climbing plant, 



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