What is the difference between pepper and Sichuan pepper? A quick guide to telling them apart

Pepper is also known as white pepper, black pepper, etc. It is a woody climbing vine in the genus Piper, family Piperaceae, order Piperales, native to Southeast Asia and now widely cultivated in tropical regions. Sichuan pepper is also known as qin pepper, great pepper, Qin pepper, Shu pepper, etc. It is a deciduous shrub or small tree in the genus Zanthoxylum, family Rutaceae. Let us take a look below at what the differences between pepper and Sichuan pepper are!

The difference in family and genus between pepper and Sichuan pepper

1. Pepper: Pepper is a woody climbing vine in the plant kingdom, phylum Angiosperms, class Dicotyledons, subclass Magnoliidae, order Piperales, family Piperaceae, genus Piper.

2. Sichuan pepper: Sichuan pepper is a deciduous shrub or small tree in the plant kingdom, phylum Angiosperms, class Dicotyledons, subclass Magnoliidae, order Rutales, suborder Rutineae, family Rutaceae, subfamily Rutoideae, genus Zanthoxylum, subgenus Zanthoxylum.

The morphological difference between pepper and Sichuan pepper

1. Pepper: The stems and branches of pepper are hairless, with conspicuously swollen nodes that often bear small roots. The leaves are thick, nearly leathery, broadly ovate to ovate-oblong, rarely nearly round. The flowers are polygamous, usually monoecious, and the inflorescence is opposite the leaves, shorter than or equal to the leaves in length, with the peduncle nearly as long as the petiole. The berry is spherical, red when ripe, and turns black after drying when unripe. The flowering period is from June to October.

2. Sichuan pepper: The Sichuan pepper plant is a deciduous small tree 3-7 m tall. The thorns on the trunk often fall off early, the branches have short thorns, and the thorns on the branchlets are broad and flat at the base and form a strong, straight long triangle. Current-year branches are covered with short soft hairs. The leaflets are opposite, and the inflorescence is terminal or borne at the tip of lateral branches. The fruit is purplish red. The flowering period is from April to May, and the fruiting period is from August to September or October.

The difference in origin between pepper and Sichuan pepper

1. Pepper: Pepper is native to Southeast Asia. It is cultivated in Taiwan, China, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and other provinces and regions in China. Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Brazil are the main pepper-exporting countries.

2. Sichuan pepper: Sichuan pepper is suited to warm, humid conditions and deep, fertile loam and sandy loam. It has strong sprouting ability, is cold-tolerant, drought-tolerant, sun-loving and highly disease-resistant. Its production areas run from southern Northeast China in the north to the northern slopes of the Five Ridges in the south, from the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang in the southeast to southeastern Tibet in the southwest. It is not produced in Taiwan, China, Hainan or Guangdong.

The difference in effects between pepper and Sichuan pepper

1. Pepper: Pepper is pungent in taste and hot in nature, entering the stomach and large intestine meridians. It has the effects of warming the middle and dispelling cold, directing qi downward and resolving phlegm. It mainly treats abdominal pain and diarrhea, poor appetite, epilepsy with excessive phlegm and other conditions.

2. Sichuan pepper: Sichuan pepper is pungent in taste and warm in nature, entering the spleen, stomach and kidney meridians. It has the effects of warming the middle and relieving pain, killing parasites and relieving itching. It is used for epigastric and abdominal cold pain, vomiting and diarrhea, abdominal pain due to parasitic infestation and other conditions, and is used externally for eczema, genital itching and so on.