Both black and white pepper are in daily use, not only as a spice, but also in cookery. When coarsely ground, pepper is eaten with peas, cabbages, cucumbers, and other flatulent and cold vegetables; and occasionally also with fish. It is sometimes employed in medicine as a stimulant. A singular imposition respecting pepper is occasionally practised in retail shops in London: artificial pepper-corns, both black and white, are mixed and sold with real pepper. The detection of this fraudulent mixture, however, is easy. If a handful of the suspected pepper be thrown into water, the artificial corns will fall to powder, or be partially dissolved, while the true pepper-corns will remain whole. The fraudulent grains are said to be made of peas-meal. 21. _LONG PEPPER is the fruit of a slender climbing shrub_ (Piper longum) _which grows in the East Indies._ _It is of cylindrical shape, about an inch and half in length, and a quarter of an inch in thickness; and is formed by the union of a great number of small rounded grains. The shrub that produces it has dark green and heart-shaped leaves, each with seven strong nerves._ A considerable quantity of long pepper is annually imported in this country from Bengal and other parts of the East, for use, both in domestic economy and in medicine. The inhabitants of India drink water in which long pepper has been infused, and esteem it a valuable remedy for some disorders of the stomach. They also distil an ardent spirit from it; and they pickle this fruit in vinegar, for use at table. The fruit that is collected for exportation is gathered before it is quite ripe. 22. _BETEL is the leaf of a climbing East Indian plant_ (Piper betel) _which belongs to the same tribe as pepper; and, in shape and appearance, is not much unlike that of ivy, but is more tender, and full of juice._ There is an almost incredible consumption of betel over the whole continent of India. The inhabitants chew it almost incessantly, and in such quantity that their lips become quite red, and their teeth black, a colour greatly preferred by them to the whiteness which Europeans so much affect. They carry it, in little white boxes, about their persons, and present it to each other, by way of compliment and civility, in the same manner as the Europeans do snuff. This is done by women as well as by men: and it would be considered an offence if those to whom it was offered should refuse to accept of, and chew it. The leaves are sometimes used alone, but much more commonly covered with a kind of lime made of sea shells, and wrapped round slices of the areca nut (245). ---- CLASS III.--TRIANDRIA. ---- MONOGYNIA. 23. _SAFFRON is the orange-coloured pistil, or centre part, of a purple species of crocus_ (Crocus sativus) _which flowers in the autumn, and is chiefly distinguished by having the three extremities of the pistil so long as to hang out of the flower_ (Fig. 6.)