Abstract

Dried Piper nigrum Linn. fruit, also known as black pepper, is an economically valuable medicinal plant that has diverse pharmacological activities. The current study was aimed to establish a research on P. nigrum fruits that can be used as a tool for quality control and standardisation of this plant in Malaysia. Black pepper specimens were collected from three different locations in Malaysia; namely Johor, Malacca and Sarawak. Various tests were conducted in the present work to obtain detailed pharmacognostic and chromatographic profiles of P. nigrum fruits, including plant morphology, taxonomy characteristics, phytochemical screening, physicochemical properties and chromatographic analysis. Using a validated high performance liquid chromatography method we quantified piperine in the samples and the highest content was obtained for the specimen from Malacca. It can be concluded that the proposed analytical methods could be applied for both qualitative and quantitative analysis of P. nigrum fruits to control the quality of Malaysian black pepper.