Black pepper

Piper nigrum

Piperaceae

The berry that made the spice routes — a tropical vine whose dried fruit is still the world’s default heat.

Culinary peppercorn. White, green, and black are one vine at different ripeness and processing.

Parts used: Dried fruit (peppercorn)
Traditional notes: Kitchen spice · After a heavy meal · Traditional digestive heat
Grow · USDA 6b: Tropical evergreen vine, USDA 10–12; greenhouse north A nursery vine if you have a conservatory. Most kitchens buy the berry. In work: Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov · Dec
Harvest: Green spikes for green pepper; almost-ripe for black; fully red for white.

A jar from a grocer is the honest harvest north of the tropics.
If a vine is offered, it wants a winter above 60°F and a tree to climb.
Grind at the table. Pre-ground pepper is a ghost.

Safety

Active gastric ulcer in very large medicinal amounts Pepper oil internally

Lore

Rome paid in gold for Malabar pepper; Alaric the Visigoth took a ton of it as ransom in 408. Medieval Europe used it the way we use salt — as wealth you could taste. The phrase ‘peppercorn rent’ is a joke about a contract that costs almost nothing, which only works if you have forgotten what a peppercorn used to cost.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.