This simple description will in some respects answer our purpose at the present time. The leaf of the pepper vine is entire, simple, alternate, without stipules, broad, and fleshy, or oval or heart-shaped. The leaves are arranged in clusters of five to seven in number, opposite the flower stalk, and the flowers, which are glossy-white, are very insignificant in appearance upon a long slender pendulous spadix. They are for the most part uni-sexual, either manœcious or diœcious; that is, the staminate (male flower) and pistillate (female) flowers are separate either upon different branches of the same plant (manœcious) or upon different plants (diœcious). The leaves are four to six inches long, and they partake strongly of the aromatic and peculiar smell and pungent taste of the berry. The small fruit grows loosely on the pendulous fruit stalks or spikes. A single vine will bear from twenty to thirty fruit spikes and each spike contains twenty to forty berries. If they were allowed to ripen, the berries would lose some of their pungency and would gradually fall off. The pepper vine produces two crops annually, the first in December and January, at the time of the first monsoon. The flowers of the second crop appear in March and April, at the time of the little monsoon, and the crop is gathered in July and August. The second crop is inferior both in quality and quantity, probably on account of lack of moisture. The pepper berry is a small, round, sessile, fleshy fruit, which at first appears green, next red, and finally yellow when fully ripe. When one or two berries at the base of the spike begin to turn red the entire spike is pinched off. In gathering the fruit, the natives make use of a small triangular ladder made of bamboo, with which they go around the tree and reach all the fruit as they go. The fruit is put in small baskets slung over the shoulder (see illustrations) of the gatherer. It is then taken by those who work on the ground to a smooth, level spot of clean, hard ground and spread on mats or platforms to dry (mat drying is said to give heavier returns), care being taken to carry it in at night so as to escape the dews. After three days, as the drying proceeds, the berries are removed by rubbing with the hands and are picked clean or winnowed in large round sieves. In some eastern localities mills operated by hand facilitate the work. After the berries have become dry they will shrivel and turn black or chocolate. Those gathered too soon will after being dried become dust.