Guinea Pepper

Guinea Pepper, a name which has been variously applied to the seeds or dried fruit of several very different plants, agreeing in their peppery character, and in being the produce of the west of Africa. The name Malaguetta (Malaghetta, Meleguetta, &c.) Pepper is generally to be regarded as equivalent with Guinea Pepper, and is at present a frequent designation of Grains of Paradise (q.v.); but the capsules or dry berries of Capsicum frutescens (see CAPSICUM) are commonly but erroneously sold by druggists under the name Guinea Pepper; whilst the names Guinea Pepper, Malaguetta Pepper, and Ethiopian Pepper have been applied to the dried fruit of Cubeba Clusii (see CUBEBS), and to the seeds of Habzelia (or Xylopia) Ethiopica, a shrub of the natural order Anonaceæ. Up to the close of the 18th century Guinea Pepper continued in request, when the peppers of the East drove it from the market.