Hu Jiao

Piper nigrum, black pepper, is a perennial woody climbing vine in the Piperaceae, native to the Western Ghats of India and now widely cultivated across the wet tropics. The plant climbs by adventitious roots that emerge at the nodes, reaching 4 to 10 meters when supported on a tree or pole. The alternate leaves are simple, broadly ovate to elliptic, 10 to 18 cm long, with five to seven prominent palmate veins, a leathery dark green upper surface and a paler glaucous underside. The flowers are tiny, sessile and apetalous, densely arranged on slender, pendulous, axillary spikes 5 to 15 cm long. Each spike matures into a chain of small, single-seeded drupes 4 to 6 mm in diameter, green at first, ripening through red to almost black. The familiar black peppercorn is the entire dried fruit harvested while still green and ripening; white pepper is the same fruit ripened, soaked and rubbed free of the dark pericarp. The fruit contains the alkaloid piperine and a complex pungent essential oil.