PIPER, Pepper; a genus of the trigynia order, belonging to the diandria class of plants. There are 20 species, of which the most remarkable is the siribos, with oval, heart-shaped, nerved leaves, and reflexed spikes. This is the plant which produces the pepper so much used in food. It is a shrub whose root is small, fibrous, and flexible; it rises into a stem, which requires a tree or a prop to support it. Its wood has the
same sort of knots as the vine; and when it is dry, it exactly resembles the vine-branch. The leaves, which have a strong smell and a pungent taste, are of an oval shape; but they diminish towards the extremity, and terminate in a point. From the flower-buds, which are white, and are sometimes placed in the middle and sometimes at the extremity of the branches, are produced small berries resembling those of the curant-tree. Each of these contains between 20 and 30 corns of pepper; they are commonly gathered in October, and exposed to the sun seven or eight days. The fruit, which was green at first, and afterwards red, when stripped of its covering assumes the appearance it has when we see it. The largest, heaviest, and least shrivelled, is the best.
The pepper-plant flourishes in the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Ceylon, and more particularly on the Malabar coast. It is not sown, but planted; and great nicety is required in the choice of the shoots. It produces no fruit till the end of three years; but bears so plentifully the three succeeding years, that some plants yield between six and seven pounds of pepper. The bark then begins to shrink; and the shrub declines so fast, that in 12 years time it ceases bearing.
The culture of pepper is not difficult: it is sufficient to plant it in a rich soil, and carefully to pull up the weeds that grow in great abundance round its roots, especially the three first years. As the sun is highly necessary to the growth of the pepper-plant, when it is ready to bear, the trees that support it must be lopped to prevent their shade from injuring the fruit. When the season is over, it is proper to crop the head of the plant. Without this precaution, there would be too much wood, and little fruit.
The pepper exported from Malabar, which was formerly entirely in the hands of the Portuguese, and is at present divided between the Dutch, British, and French, amounts to about 10,000,000 weight.