Piper mullesua - Hill Pepper

Hill Pepper is a woody climber, hairless except for rachis and bases of bracts. Stems are slender, hard, basal part tuberculate. Leaf-stalks are 0.7-2 cm, slender. Leaves are elliptic or narrowly elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, 7.5-9 x 3-4 cm, papery to thinly leathery, without glands, base wedge-shaped, symmetric or slightly oblique, apex long-pointed, falling off, veins 5-7, very prominent below, apical pair arising 1-2.5 cm above base, usually alternate; reticulate veins conspicuous. Flowers are bisexual, carried in short round spikes leaf-opposed, at tips of branchlets, about 3 x 2.5-3 mm, stalk 2-3 mm. Bracts are circular, about 1 mm wide, peltate. Drupe is obovoid, about 2.5 mm in diameter, partly immersed in rachis. Hill Pepper is found in the Himalayas, from Kumaun to Bhutan, and other parts of India, at altitudes of 400-2500 m. Flowering: May-July.