SPICES AND CONDIMENTS. 



185 



crowned still more indistinctly by the three or four lobed stigma. The thin pericarp 

 tightly encloses a single seed, the embryo of which, in consequence of premature gath- 

 ering, is undeveloped and merely replaced by a cavity situated below the apex. The 

 seed itself contains within the thin red-brown testa a shining albumen, gray and 

 horny without and mealy within. The pungent taste and peculiar smell of pepper 

 are familiar to all. 



The transverse section of the grain of black pepper exhibits a soft yellowish epider- 

 mis, covering the outer pericarp. This is formed of a closely-packed yellow layer of 

 large, mostly radially arranged, thick-walled cells, each containing in its small cav- 

 ity a mass of dark brown resin. The middle layer of the pericarp consists of soft tan- 

 gentially extended parenchyme, containing an abundance of extremely small starch 

 granules and drops of oil. The shrinking of this loose middle layer is the chief cause of 

 the deep wrinkles on the surface of the berry. The next inner layer of the pericarp ex- 

 hibits towards its circumference tangentially arranged, soft parenchyme, the cells of 

 which possess either spiral striation or spiral fibers, but towards the interior loose 

 parenchyme free from starch and containing very large oil cells. The testa is 

 formed in the first place of a row of small yellow thick-walled cells. Next to them 

 follows the true testa, as a dense, dark brown layer of liguified cells, the individual 

 outlines of which are indistinguishable. The albumen of the seeds consists of angu- 

 lar, radially arranged, large-celled pareuchyme. Most of its cells are colorless and 

 loaded with starch, others contain a soft yellow amorphous mass. If thin slices are 

 kept under glycerine for some time, these masses are slowly transformed into needle- 

 shaped crystals of piperin. 



IG. 11. Pepper husk, cross-section, ep, epidermis; a, stone cells; &, parenchyme with oil cells; c, 

 spiral vessels ; d, inner parenchyme; e, inner layer of stone cells. (After Schimper.) 



Of the structure described so well in the preceding lines, of a portion 

 )f which a diagramatic illustration is given in Fig. 11, after Schimper, 

 mly parts are readily found in the powdered pepper of the shops. The 

 ingular cells of the interior of the seed are of course the most prominent, 



id when once seen their characteristic form and contents are easily rec- 

 )gnized again. The structure of the outer coats is made out with more 

 lifficulty. It is well, before attempting to do so on a ground pepper, 

 to soften some whole black and white pepper-corns in glycerine and 

 cut sections from various parts of the exterior of the berry. Taking 

 the white pepper first it will not be found difficult in such sections 

 mounted in glycerine to pick out three layers of different cells compos- 



