The plants yielding the black and white pepper of the market are climbing or trailing shrubs. The stem attains a length of from 15 to 25 feet. The climbing portions cling to the support (usually large trees) by means of aerial roots similar to the ivy. The leaves are entire, simple, alternate, without stipules. The flowers are very insignificant in appearance, sessile upon a long, slender, pendulous spadix. They are mostly unisexual, either monoecious or dioecious, that is the staminate (male) flowers and pistillate (female) flowers are separate, either upon different branches of the same plant (monoecious) or upon different plants (dioecious). The fruit is berry-like, with a thin, fleshy pericarp enclosing a single seed. The young fruit is grass-green, then changes to red and finally to yellowish when ripe. In southern India the flowers mature in May and June and the seeds ripen five or six months later. Piper nigrum is a native of southern India, growing abundantly along the Malabar coast. It thrives best in rich soil in the shade of trees to which it clings. It also grows in Ceylon, Singapore, Penang, Borneo, Luzon, Java, Sumatra and the Philippines. It is cultivated in all of the countries named, especially in southwestern India. Attempts at its cultivation have been made in the West Indies. In India the natives simplify the cultivation of pepper by tying the wild-growing vines to a height of six feet to neighboring trees and clearing away the under-wood, leaving just enough trees to provide shade. The roots are covered with heaps of leaves and the shoots are trimmed or clipped twice a year. In localities where the pepper does not grow wild, well drained but not very dry soil not liable to inundations is selected. During the rainy season or during the dry season in February cuttings are planted about a foot from the trees which are to serve as support. The plants are manured and frequently watered during the dry season. They begin to yield about the fourth or fifth year and continue to yield for eight or nine years. The methods of cultivation differ somewhat in different countries. The harvest begins as soon as one or two berries of the base of the spike begin to turn red, which is before the fruit is mature. Two crops are collected each year, the principal one in December and January, the second in July and August. The spikes are collected in bags or baskets and dried in the sun on mats or on the ground. Ripe berries lose in pungency and also fall off and are lost.