MaticoPiper aduncum

Did you know?

• Aduncum is Latin for "hooked" or "curved"^{[9, 10]}, and one Portuguese name, pimenta-do-fruto-ganchoso, means "hooked-fruit pepper"^[4].

• Matico belongs to Piper, the genus of black pepper, cubeb and kava^{[5, 6]}.

• Spanish speakers call it cordoncillo, "little cord." Its slender white flower spikes do look like short lengths of cord^{[1, 3, 4]}.

• In Ecuador one of its names is hierba del soldado, "soldier's herb"^[4].

• Far from home, it has become an invasive weed on Pacific islands such as Fiji and the Solomon Islands, where it can get mixed into harvests of its cousin kava^{[1, 2, 3]}.

• Its small fruits taste peppery and have been used as a spice^[3].

Origins and history

Matico is a shrub or small tree, usually 6 to 20 feet (2 to 6 m) tall, with long leaves up to about 10 inches (26 cm)^{[1, 3]}. Its minute flowers are packed along slender white spikes 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 cm) long, which ripen into tiny fruits with black seeds, and it can flower and fruit all year round^{[1, 3, 5]}. It grows wild from Mexico and the Caribbean islands through Central America and South America to northern Argentina^{[1, 2, 3]}, and Carl Linnaeus named it in 1753^{[1, 4]}.

In Peru and Ecuador the plant is called matico^{[1, 4, 7]}. By the late 1800s dried matico leaves from Peru were known in the United States, and American herbal reference books described them as aromatic and bitter, with a camphor-like oil^{[7, 8]}. Those books called the plant Piper angustifolium, a name botanists now count as the same species as Piper aduncum^{[1, 7, 8]}. It has gathered other names too: cordoncillo and higuillo in Spanish, spiked pepper, bamboo piper, false kava and jointwood in English, and hierba del soldado in Ecuador^{[2, 4]}.

Matico is a plant of the kitchen as well as the herb shelf. Its small fruits have a peppery flavor and are used as a spice, its leaves are cooked as a potherb, and its small timber serves for stakes, fences and fuel^[3]. From its home in the Americas it has spread to Florida, Hawaii, Southeast Asia and the islands of the Pacific^{[1, 2, 4]}. Birds and bats carry its seeds, and it also spreads by suckers into large clumps^[2]. In parts of the Pacific it is now an invasive weed, and it can end up mixed into kava harvests^{[2, 3]}.

Traditional uses

Clinical studies of matico in people are still few, but its traditional use is rich and spread right across the tropical Americas^[6].

• For the stomach

  In Jamaica, as in parts of Africa, an infusion of matico leaves is a traditional drink for the stomach, and in the wider Caribbean a tea of the leaves and roots is taken for occasional queasiness.^[6] Early American herbal texts described matico as an aromatic bitter^[8]. Matico supports digestive comfort.

• Urinary tract

  In Mexico and the Caribbean, matico's traditional uses include the urinary tract. Matico helps promote urinary tract health.*^{[6, 8]}

• Chest and airways

  Matico also has a tradition of use for the chest and airways. Matico supports respiratory health.*^[6]

• A peppery spice

  The fruits are used to season food.^[3]

Plant compounds

Matico leaves contain an aromatic essential oil whose make-up changes from region to region^{[6, 11]}. In plants from the Amazon it is dominated by dillapiole, while oils from other places are richer in terpenes such as 1,8-cineole^{[6, 11]}. Camphor has been reported in the oil, and 19th-century herbal texts already noted the leaves' camphor-like character^{[6, 7, 8, 11]}.