HERBA MATICO. 589 



frequently mistaken by Europeans for cubebs. The tree which affords 

 them is unknown to modern botanists ; Meissner refers it doubtfully to 

 the genus Tetranthera} 



Ashantee Pepper, African Cubebs, or West African 

 Black Pepper. 



This spice is the fruit of Piper Clusil Cas. DC. {Ciiheha Clusii Miq.), 

 a species of wide distribution in tropical Africa, most abundantly 

 occurring in the country of the Niamniam, about 4<° to 5° N. lat., and 

 28" to 29° E. long. Its splendid red fruit bunches are spoken of with 

 admiration by Schweinfurth,- who states that Piper Clusii is one of the 

 characteristic and most conspicuous plants of those regions. The dried 

 fruit is a round berry having a general resemblance to common cubebs 

 but somewhat smaller, less rugose, attenuated into a slender pedicel once 

 or twice as long as the berry and usually curved. The berries are 

 crowded around a common stalk or nichis; they are of an a.shy gi-ey 

 tint, and have a hot taste and the odour of pepper. According to Sten- 

 house, they contain piperin and not cubebin.^ 



The fruit of Piper Clusii was known as early as 13G4< to the 

 merchants of Rouen and Dieppe, who imported it from the Grain Coast, 

 now Liberia,* under the name of pepper. The Portuguese likewise 

 exported it from Benin as far back as 1485, as Pimienta de raho, i.e. 

 tailed pepper, and attempted in vain to sell it in Flanders.' Clusius 

 received from London a specimen of this drug, of which he has left a 

 good figure in his Exotica.'^ He says that its importation was forbidden 

 by the King of Portugal for fear it should depreciate the pepper of 

 India. The spice was also known to Gerarde and Parkinson ; in our 

 times it has been afresh brought to notice by the late Dr. Daniell.'^ In 

 tropical 'Western Africa it is used as a condiment, and might easily be 

 collected in large quantities, provided it should prove a good substitute 

 for pepper.* 



HERBA MATICO. 



Matico. 



Botanical Origin — Piper angustifolium^ Ruiz et Pavon (Arfanthe 

 elongcda Miq.), a shrub growing in the moist woods of Bolivia, Peru, 

 Brazil, New Granada and Venezuela, also cultivated in some localities. 

 A slightly different, somewhat stouter form of the plant with leaves 

 7 to 8 inches long (var. a. cordulatuni Cas. DC), occurs in the Brazilian 

 provinces of Bahia, Minas Geraes and Ceara, as well as in Peiu and the 

 northern parts of South America. 



1 De Candolle, Prod. xv. sect. i. 199 ; ^ Giovanni di Barros, FAsia, i. (Venet. 



Hanbury in Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 205, 1561) 80. 



with figure ; also Science Papers, 247. ^ Lib. i. c. 22, p. 184 (1605). 



- Im Herzen A/ricas, i. (1874) 507 ; ii. ' Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 198. 



399. s Qjig cask of it was ofifered for sale in 



* Pliarm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 363. London as " Cubebs," 11 Feb. 1858. 



^ 'iia.Tgey, Les navigations fran<;alseii et la "Fig. in Bentley and Trimen's Med. 



revolution maritime du XI V' au X VI' siicle. Plants, part 18 (1877). 

 1867. 26. 



