130 FRUITS 



although exact information concerning the cultivation is difficult to 

 obtain. The fruits were used as a spice, and as a medicine in the 

 Middle Ages. 



The pistillate inflorescence of the cubeb is a spike of sessile flowers. 

 The young fruits are also sessile, but as they mature they become 

 elevated on a slender stalk produced by an abnormal development 

 of the pericarp of the fruit at its base (fig. 73, C). When the fruits 

 are full-grown, but whilst they are still green and unripe, they are 

 stripped from the rachis, bringing with them the stalk-like pro- 

 longation of the pericarp which remains permanently attached to 

 them, whence the name ' tailed pepper ' by which they are sometimes 

 known. They are then dried in the sun, during which the green 

 colour changes to a greyish black ; they are bought up by Chinese 



traders and exported chiefly from Batavia 

 to Amsterdam or from Singapore to 

 London. 



Description. The commercial drug con- 

 sists of nearly globular fruits, sometimes 

 depressed at the base (immature fruits), 

 measuring about 4 mm. in diameter, and 

 A s usually of a greyish brown or nearly 



black colour. The pericarp is reticulately 



FIG. 74. Cubeb. A, entire . fl i i jv 



fruit, magnified. , entire wrinkled (due to the shrinking as the 



fruit, cut vertically, magni- fresh fruit dries) or, in very young fruits, 



fied. (PlanchonandCollin.) shrivelled and abruptly prolonged at the 



base into a slender stalk about 6 mm. in 



length which is usually rounded or slightly flattened. The apex of 

 the fruit bears the minute remains of three or four stigmas. 



Within the pericarp, which is thin and brittle, is a single seed 

 attached by the base ; frequently only the dark shrunken remains of 

 a partially developed seed are to be found. The fully developed seed 

 is reddish brown in colour. The embryo is very small and embedded 

 near the apex of the seed in a somewhat scanty endosperm surrounded 

 by a copious, whitish perisperm, which constitutes the greater part 

 of the seed. 



Cubebs exhale, when crushed, a strong, characteristic, spicy odour, 

 and possess a strong, spicy, somewhat bitter taste. The crushed 

 fruit, sprinkled upon the surface of concentrated sulphuric acid, 

 produces a crimson coloration. This reaction is an important one, 

 as most of the substitutes for cubebs yield only a brownish red 

 under the same conditions. It is especially valuable when taken 

 in conjunction with the microscopical characters, for there is no 

 substitute known that possesses an anatomical structure identical 

 with that of genuine cubebs, and also yields the crimson colour with 

 sulphuric acid (Hartwich, 1898). 



