PINK PEPPER: CHARACTERISTICS, HABITAT, CULTIVATION, PROPERTIES - BIOLOGY - 2025

The pink pepper is a perennial species belonging to the Anacardiaceae family. It is commonly known as pink pepper, turbinto, false pepper, and Brazilian pepper. It is an arboreal plant, with leaves up to 22 cm long, with a fragrant and evergreen smell.

The flowers are small and aromatic and are grouped in panicle-like inflorescences. Its intense red fruits affect the mobility of pedestrians and vehicles when they are produced en masse and fall to the ground.

Fruits and leaves of pink pepper. Source: B. NAVEZ

It is a species native to Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. Today it is a species cultivated in both temperate and warm areas of the world, and has been naturalized in many places. It is used as a medicinal plant, in ecological restoration or as a living barrier, among others.

characteristics

Appearance

It is an evergreen tree, producing resin, with a height between 5 and 7 m. Its crown is dense, round or ovoid, its color is intense green and its trunk shows a dark gray bark.

This bark is smooth at the beginning, but as time passes it becomes fissured, with cracks and scales. Its branches are brown in color and show a pubescence that gradually disappears. It has many lenticels and produces resin.

Leaves

The leaves are alternate, odd-pinnate, measuring between 8 and 20 cm long, counting the petiole. In turn, its rachis is winged and measures 4 to 9 cm long with a petiole that is 2 to 3 cm long, puberulent and red in color.

The leaflets are 7 to 13, they can be sessile or subsssile, opposite, elliptical, obovate, they are 1.5 to 6 cm long and 1 to 3 cm wide. The terminal leaflet is the largest, the base is cuneate or asymmetric, its entire margin serrated, and its apex subacute and sometimes muchronous.

The texture of the leaflets is membranous or subcoriaceous, they do not present pubescence, although they do appear in the veins. The upper surface is dark green and the underside is a paler and less bright green. The lateral venation is obvious.

flowers

The flowers are grouped in panicle-like inflorescences, which can be axillary or terminal, and their shape is pyramidal. The flowers are between 2.5 and 20 cm long, and are highly branched.

Its flowers can also be deciduous or persistent, unisexual, yellowish-white in color, arranged on well-articulated pedicels whose length is 1 to 3 mm long. The calyx has 5 free, ovate sepals, devoid of pubescence.

The flowers of pink pepper are small and fragrant. Source: João Medeiros

The corolla is composed of 5 ovarian-elliptical petals. Like the sepals, they do not present pubescence and are between 2 and 3 mm long by 2 mm wide.

Male flowers have ten stamens arranged in two whorls, and the outermost ones are smaller than the inner stamens. While, the female flowers have a globose ovary, measuring between 1 and 1.5 mm, with a seminal rudiment, unilocular and its style is short and at its end it shows a pointed stigma.

Fruit and seed

The fruit of the pink pepper is a globose drupe of 4.5 to 5 mm by 4 to 4.5 mm, they are smooth with an intense red color. The calyx and style are persistent in this fruit.

The seed is light brown in color, measures approximately 3 mm and its shape is elliptical or reniform.

Taxonomy

-Kingdom: Plantae

-Class: Equisetopsida

-Subclass: Magnoliidae

-Superorden: Rosanae

-Order: Sapindales

-Family: Anacardaceae

-Gender: Schinus

-Species: Schinus terebinthifolia Raddi.

Schinus terebinthifolius is a perennial arboreal species. Source: H. Zell

Its name Schinus comes from the Greek name given to the mastic, which is another tree species of the same family. The name of the species terebinthifolia refers to the cornicabra (Pistacia terebinthus), since its leaves are very similar to those of this species.

Habitat and distribution

This plant can live in countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, the United States and Venezuela, among others.

The altitudinal range it occupies ranges from 0 to 2000 meters above sea level. It requires high lighting, and tolerates poor to rich soils. It is a species resistant to droughts.

Culture

This tree can tolerate acidic and calcareous soils, somewhat poor, but with good drainage.

The growth of this species occurs more and better in soils with a high content of silica and clay, as well as it is recommended that they be deep.

As for droughts, this tree is very tolerant of them. Irrigation is necessary in the early stages of growth and mainly during summers. Diminishes in semi-shade conditions, and should not be applied when frost occurs.

The propagation of pink pepper can be done by seeds and cuttings and both forms are fast growing.

At the beginning of its growth, it requires training pruning to form a straight trunk and a compact canopy.

The fruits of pink pepper are a bright red drupe. Source: Forest & Kim Starr

Properties

This tree is widely used for its purifying and febrifuge properties. Other uses are to treat uterine conditions, ulcers, and as a diuretic.

Likewise, pink pepper produces an essential oil and an alcoholic extract that have antibacterial activity against Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus and Escherichia. In the same way, the ethanolic extract of the dried leaves produces a controlling activity of the mollusk Biomphalaria glabrata.

On the other hand, the aqueous extract of the branches and leaves have antiviral activity against some bacteriophages, as well as against the tobacco and potato mosaic virus. Likewise, the cooked bark is useful for the treatment of wounds, tumors, to reduce inflammation and control diarrhea.

Pink pepper contains many tannins in its woody parts (bark and branches) that are used in the dyeing of fishing nets.

However, this species can be not very favorable, since it causes cross and atopic allergies in the skin of people when they are exposed for more than 4 months a year to this pollen. Consumption of the fruit produces an itch similar to that of black pepper and sometimes causes vomiting, diarrhea in children and headaches.

In addition to medicinal uses, pink pepper is very useful for the recovery of degraded areas, since it behaves like a pioneer and aggressive species and has the ability to disperse through animals.

References

1. Correa, W., Susin, F. Vivian, M., Machado, M. 2012. Influência da irrigação non-growth of seedlings of Schinus terebinthifolius. Brazilian Florestal Research 32 (69): 23-28.
2. Sánchez de Lorenzo-Cáceres, JM 2017. Shinus terebinthifolia. Taken from: arbolesornamentales.es
3. Fundesyram Agroecological Library. 2019. Medicinal plant, Schinus terebinthifolius Raddi. Taken from: fundesyram.info
4. Tropics. 2019. Shinus terebinthifolia Raddi. Taken from: tropicos.org
5. Virtual catalog of flora of the Aburrá Valley. 2014. Shinus terebinthifolia. Taken from: catalogofloravalleaburra.eia.edu.co