. A history of the vegetable kingdom; embracing the physiology of plants, with their uses to man and the lower animals, and their application in the arts, manufactures, and domestic economy. Illus. by several hundred figures. Botany; Botany, Economic; 1855. CAJEPUT TREE. 489 tivated ; not a weed is to be seen, eveiy species of litter is removed, and if the season be dry, the plants are watered with unremitting assiduity. The black and white sorts of pepper are both the produce of the same plant; the best white peppers are supposed to be the finest berries which drop from the tree, and lying un
. A history of the vegetable kingdom; embracing the physiology of plants, with their uses to man and the lower animals, and their application in the arts, manufactures, and domestic economy. Illus. by several hundred figures. Botany; Botany, Economic; 1855. CAJEPUT TREE. 489 tivated ; not a weed is to be seen, eveiy species of litter is removed, and if the season be dry, the plants are watered with unremitting assiduity. The black and white sorts of pepper are both the produce of the same plant; the best white peppers are supposed to be the finest berries which drop from the tree, and lying under it become somewhat blanched by exposure to weather—these the poor people pick up and bring to the merchants; they are, however, obtained in very small quantities, and are on that account, as well as for their superior quality, . sold much dearer than the gathered pepper, which pepper was formerly thought to be a different species from the black; and at the East India sales used to bring them twice the price of the other. The greater part of the white pepper used as a condiment, is, however, the black merely steeped in water and decorticated, by which means the pungency and real value of the pepper are diminished; but in this state it can be more readily reduced to powder, and, when thus pre- pared, it has a fairer and more uniform appear- ance. The pepper is distinguished in Sumatra into three sorts: the molucca, which is the best; the second, caytongee; and the worst sort, negaree, which last is the most abundant; this is a small pepper usually full of dust; it is much lighter than the others, and therefore, unless the buyer be wise enough to purchase his pepper by weight instead of measure, he will assuredly be imposed upon, and have this substituted for the heavy Molucca berry. By distillation a green-coloured matter is obtained from pepper; this is partly resinous, and partly oily, and to this the pepper owes its pungent quality. Long Pepper (p. longum). The roots of
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