Piper
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| Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture |
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Piper (the ancient latin name). Piperaceae. Pepper. A vast genus (probably 600 to 700 species) of both the Old and New Worlds, mostly in the tropics, a few of which are in cultivation as greenhouse foliage subjects and in collections of economic plants. Pipers are mostly dioecious: erect or climbing woody plants, or sometimes herbaceous, and some are trees: fls. very minute, borne beneath decurrent bracts in slender, erect or drooping axillary spikes or catkins; perianth none; stamens usually 1—4; ovary 1-loculed, with a solitary erect ovule: fr. a small globular drupe or berry: lvs. alternate, stipulate, usually entire. The pepper of commerce is the product of P. nigrum. The family contains many plants with aromatic, pungent and stimulating qualities. Some of them are used in medicine, and others yield intoxicating and masticatory products. For red pepper and chilli or chile pepper, see Capsicum and Bell Pepper. To this genus are also referred Enckea and species sometimes grown under the name of Chavica. In choice collections, one is likely to find several species, but as they seldom fruit it is very difficult to determine their species. In the following list are all the names that have appeared in the American trade. Piper is an exceedingly difficult genus to the systematist because of the great numbers of species, the variation of foliage in the same plant at different epochs, the difficulty of matching the sexes of the same species, the imperfect specimens in herbaria, and the scarcity of good studies of the plants in the wild. They are easy of cultivation. Most of those known in houses require a warmhouse temperature and a humid atmosphere. Easily multiplied by cuttings of the firm wood. They are grown for the decorative value of their drooping or bushy sprays. P. Betle, Linn. Betel. Climbing, nearly or quite glabrous: lvs. large and thick, ovate-oblong, acuminate, usually oblique at base, strongly 5-7-nerved: spikes often 4-0 in. long: fr. very fleshy, often cohering into a long-cylindrical mass. Eastern tropics. Lvs. of this and others chewed by natives with the betel-nut.—P. metallicum, Hort. (Hallier?). Lvs. thick, rounded, handsome metallic green. Borneo.—P. officinarum, C. DC. (Chavica offcinarum, Hort.?) has long-elliptic somewhat slarp -pointed feather-veined coriaceous lvs. ana globular united berries in a dense spike. India and Malaya.—P. porphy. rophyllum. N. E. Br. (Cissus porphyrophylla, Lindl., and of horticulturists). Handsome climbing foliage plant with broadly cordate-oval short-pointed lvs. that are purple beneath and bronzy green and pink-spotted along the veins above. Probably E. Indies. —P. rubronodosum. Bull. Shrub, with red-jointed roughish sts.: lvs. cordate-ovate, somewhat blistered, silvery gray, the petiole pubescent. Colombia. —P. rubrovenosum, Hort. Climbing: lvs. cordate-ovate, acuminate, marked with rose-colored dots and streaks along the veins. Very like P. ornatum, and perhaps not distinct. Papua. CH
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| Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture |
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syn. Macropiper (long or large piper). Piperaceae. A few shrubs of the Pacific Isls., by some included in Piper, but separated by the monopodial rather than sympodial growth of the flowering shoots, and by minor characters. Probably none is in the trade, although a form of the following is mentioned in recent horticultural literature. M. excelsum, Miq. (Piper excelsum, Forst.). Glabrous densely branched aromatic shrub or small tree to 20 ft., in Tahiti, Norfolk Isl., New Zeal., and elsewhere: branches jointed and swollen: lvs. alternate, stalked, broad-ovate or broader, 7-nerved, yellow-green, the petiole winged below: spikes dense, solitary or in 2s, bearing minute unisexual fls.; stamens 2 or 3; stigmas 3 or 4: fr. small yellow berries, densely compacted! Var. aureo-pictum, Hort., has a large cream-colored or yellow blotch on the lf. For M. methysticum, Hook & Arn., and further discussion, see Piper.
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References
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
