Black Pepper

Black pepperis a floweringvine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice andseasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately 5 millimetres in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed. Peppercorns, and the ground pepper derived from them, may be described simply as pepper, or more precisely as black pepper (cooked and dried unripe fruit), green pepper and white pepper .