Long Pepper

Long pepper is a slender, creeping or climbing vine related to black pepper, with heart-shaped leaves and small catkin-like flower spikes that develop into long, cone-shaped fruits made of many tiny fused berries. It grows in the hotter, wetter parts of India, including the evergreen forests of Kerala and the Western Ghats, and is also cultivated.

The dried fruit spikes and roots are used. Ayurveda knows the fruit as Pippali, a warming rasayana traditionally used for respiratory and digestive comfort, and the root as Pippalimula. Pippali is one of the three components of the classical blend Trikatu.