Spiked pepper

Piper aduncum, commonly called spiked pepper, matico or higuillo de hoja menuda, is an evergreen shrub or small tree in the Piperaceae family native to the tropical lowlands and Andean foothills of Central and South America, where it occurs from sea level to about 3,000 metres in inter-Andean valleys and along forest margins. Plants typically grow 3 to 7 metres tall, with swollen jointed nodes, alternate, lance-shaped, prominently veined leaves 12 to 20 centimetres long that are softly hairy and rough to the touch, and a strong aromatic pepper-like fragrance when crushed. The minute apetalous flowers are densely packed onto erect to recurved, slender, white to pale yellow-green spikes 6 to 15 centimetres long borne opposite the leaves, ripening into tiny dry fruits. Widely planted and now naturalised across tropical Asia, the Pacific (Melanesia, Polynesia, Hawaii) and parts of Florida, it is regarded as one of the world's most invasive woody pioneers in disturbed tropical forests.