Description
Allspice, also known as Jamaica pepper, myrtle pepper, pimenta, or pimento is a spice made from the dried berries of a tree known as Pimenta dioica, which is a member of the Myrtle family. Christopher Columbus discovered allspice in the Caribbean when he mistook the spicy berries for peppercorns, hence its botanical name and such terms as pimento and Jamaica pepper. Allspice can be a small, scrubby tree, quite similar to the bay laurel in size and form. It can also be a tall, canopy tree, sometimes grown to provide shade for coffee trees planted underneath it.
It can be grown outdoors in the tropics and subtropics with normal garden soil and watering. It is native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central America. The fruits are picked before they are fully ripe and then dried. During drying the berries turn from green to a dull reddish brown. The nearly globular fruit, about 5 millimetres in diameter, contains two dark-brown seeds.
