586 PIPERACE^. 



special plantations and also in coffee plantations, in the district ot 

 Banjoemas in the south of Java. The fruits are bought by Chinese who 

 carry them to Batavia. They are likewise produced in Eastern Java 

 and about Bantam and Soebang in the north-west ; and extensively in 

 the Lampong country in Sumatra. There has of late been a large dis- 

 tribution of plants among the European coffee planters. 



The cultivation of cubebs is easy. In the coffee estates certain trees 

 are required for shade : against these Pi^yer Cuheha is planted, and 

 climbing to a height of 18 to 20 feet, forms a large bush. 



Description — The cubebs of commerce consist of the dry globose 

 fruits, gathered when full grown, but before they have arrived at 

 maturity. The fruit is about i of an inch in diameter, when very young 

 sessile, but subsequently elevated on a straight thin stalk, a little longer 

 or even twice as long as itself. By this stalk the fruit is attached in 

 considerable numbers (sometimes more than 50) to a common thickened 

 stalk or rachis, about 1| inch long. 



Commercial cubebs are spherical, sometimes depressed at the base, 

 very slightly pointed at the apex, strongly wrinkled by the shrinking of 

 the fleshy pericarp ; they are of a greyish-brown or blackish hue, 

 frequently covered with an ashy-grey bloom. The stalk is the 

 elongated base of the fi'uit, and remains permanently attached. The 

 common axis or rachis, which is almost devoid of essential oil, is also 

 frequently mixed with the drug. 



The skin of the fruit covers a hard, smooth brown shell containing 

 the seed, which latter when developed has a compressed spherical form, 

 a smooth surface, and adheres to the pericarp only at the base ; its apex 

 either projects slightly or is pressed inwards. The albumen is solid, 

 whitish, oily, and encloses a small embryo below the apex. In the 

 cubebs of the shops, the seed is mostly undeveloped and shrunken, and 

 the pericarp nearly empt}^ 



Cubebs have a strong, aromatic, persistent taste, with some bitterness 

 and acridity. Their smell is highly aromatic and bj'' no means dis- 

 agreeable. 



Microscopic Structure — This exhibits some peculiarities. The 

 skin of the fruit below the epidermis, is made up of small, cubic, thick- 

 walled cells, forming an interrupted row, and only half as large as in 

 black pepper. The broad middle layer consists of small cubic thick- 

 walled cells, forming an interrupted row, and only half as large as in 

 black pepper. The broad middle layer consists of small-celled un- 

 developed tissue containing drops of oil, granules of starch, and crystalline 

 groups of cubebin, probably also fat. This middle layer is interrupted 

 by very large oil-cells, which frequently enclose needle-shaped cr^^stals 

 of cubebin, united in concentric groups. The much narrower inner 

 layer consists of about four rows of somewhat larger tangentially- 

 extended soft cells, holding essential oil. Next to these comes the 

 light-yellow brittle shell, formed of a densely packed row of encrusted, 

 radially-arranged, elongated thick-walled cells. Lastly, the embryo is 

 covered with a thin brown membrane, and exhibits the structure 

 and contents as that of Piper ingruui, excepting that in P. Cuheha 

 the cells are rounder, and the cr3'stals consist of cubebin and not of 

 piperin. 



