Latin Name : Piper Longum
English/Common Name : Long pepper
Ayurvedic Name : Pipli
Parts used : Fruits
Habitat and Botany : It is a slender aromatic climber with perennial woody roots occuring in the hotter parts of India western coasts, central himalayas to assam and lower hills of Bengal.
This is one of the rarest spices in the west. From a cousin of the familiar peppercorn, these are two inch long bud heads made up of about one hundred tiny seeds, gray in color, and tightly bunched together. Used for it's peppery-ginger-ish flavor in ancient times.
According to Ayurveda, it is useful in digestion, coughs, inflammations of the nose, throat, larynx and bronchi, constipation, colic, dyspepsia, diarrhea, as well as toothaches.
Unripe fruit is used as an alternative and tonic. A decoction of immature fruits and root is used in chronic bronchitis, cough and cold. Fruits and roots are used in palsy, gout , rheumatism and lumbago. Fruit is vermifuge and also used after child birth to check post-partum haemorrhage.The fruit is also used as a spice. The fruit is also used as sedative in insomnia and epilepsy; as a cholagogue in bile duct and gall bladder obstruction. It forms one of the ingredients in various compound preparations used for Anorexia, Asthma, Piles, Dyspepsia and also in snuffs used in drowsiness and coma. It is used in splenic disorders, cholera, dysentry diarrhoea and puerperalfever.
"These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."
