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Wild Pepper
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Wild Pepper
P Native Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Wild Pepper, Pipli Pepper • Adi: Rari
Botanical name: Piper peepuloides    Family: Piperaceae (Pepper family)
Synonyms: Chavica peepuloides, Chavica neesiana

Wild pepper is a slender bush, climbing below with free spreading slender branches. Branches are often warted. The species name peepuloides probably arises from its perceived resemblance to the medicinal herb Peepali or Pipli. Leaves are shortly stalked, linear- or ovate-oblong, long-pointed, 5-12.5 x 2.5-5 cm, variable in breadth, sometimes narrowed to a minutely heart-shaped base. Base is rounded, 3-5-nerved nearly to the tip. Stalks of upper leaves are 3-6 mm long, of lower rarely 1.2 cm. Male spikes are slender, 5-7.5 cm long, covered with peltate bracts, stamens 2-4. Females spikes are 1.2-1.6 cm, cylindric, longer than their stalks. Fruit is 2 mm in diameter. Wild pepper is found in Eastern Himalayas, from Nepal to NE India and Bangladesh, up to altitudes of 1000 m.
Medicinal uses: In Aruncahal Pradesh, dried leaves are made into a paste with water and consumed to get relief from fever.

Identification credit: Prasanta Kumar Mukherjee, J.M. Garg Photographed in Sohra Forest, Meghalaya.

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