Piper, in Natural History, an aromatic berry of a hot quality, and chiefly used in seasoning. We have three kinds of pepper which are at present used in the shops; the black, the white, and the long pepper. Black pepper is the fruit of the piper, and is brought from the Dutch settlements in the East Indies. The common white pepper is factitious, being prepared from the black in the following manner. The latter is steeped in sea-water, and then exposed to the heat of the sun for several days, till the rind or outer bark loosens; it is then taken out, and, when it is half dry, rubbed till the rind fall off; the white fruit is next dried, and, lastly, the remains of the rind are blown away like chaff. A great deal of the heat of the pepper is taken off by this process, so that the white kind is fitter for many purposes than the black. However, there is a sort of native white pepper produced upon a species of the same plant, which is much better than the factitious, and indeed little inferior to the black. The long pepper is a dried fruit, of an inch or an inch and a half in length, and about the thickness of a large goose-quill. It is of a brownish-grey colour, and cylindrical in figure, and is said to be produced on a plant of the same genus.