All Piper aduncum specimens at the National Herbarium in Leiden were inspected on 5^th January 2005.  The herbarium has 112 specimens collected in 16 countries; 51 specimens are from Indonesia, 23 from Asia and the Pacific and 31 from South and Central America, from 7 specimens the location could not be identified. The first specimen was collected in Puerto Rico in 1827 and in Surinam in 1837 whereas the most recent additions were from the 1980s. An overview of first collection for Leiden is given in the Table below.

In Indonesia it was first collected in 1888 at the Botanic Gardens in West Java where it was introduced in 1860. The herbarium has several specimens from Bogor. It has been collected in various other parts of West Java but no specimen from Central or East Java were present in the herbarium.  Late 1930s, it was described in South Sumatra, in the 1950s in West Sumatra, and in the 1970s in North Sumatra. Likely, it has crossed Sunda Street. On West Papua it was collected at Biak and Jayapura in the 1950s. On Kalimantan it was first collected in 1952 near Samarinda whereas on the Moluccas and Sulawesi it was collected in the 1970s and 1980s.

First collections in Malaysia are from the 1960s in Selangor near Kuala Lumpur. In Papua New Guinea, Mary Clemens collected the first specimen near the mission post Heldsbach, off the coast of the Huon Peninsula. It was collected in the Lae Botanical gardens in 1952, near Pindiu in 1964 and along the Wau-Bulolo road in 1977. In the Central Province the first collection was near Koiari in 1970 and near the Sogeri local government in 1980. Specimens from Fiji were collected in the 1950s, mainly from Viti Levu.  It was collected from the Solomon Islands in 1969 and near Manila in the Filipines in 1929 by the Clemens.

The herbarium has quite a collection from South and Central America and these include USA-Puerto Rico (1827), Surinam (1837), Tobago (1889), Colombia (1900), West Indies (1904), Guatemala (1906), Mexico (1909), Peru (1947), Belize (1973) and Brazil (undated).

On some specimen sheets comments were written. In 1964, Piper aduncum was collected in the Mongi valley near Pindiu in the Morobe Province of PNG and it was noted that it was “locally frequent in swampy patch planted with sago”. In 1985, collectors sampled the plant in the Waramuli area south of Bulolo in PNG and mentioned, "it is commonly occurring in secondary forest”.  In Fiji it was noted in 1953 that Piper aduncum was "abundantly naturalised locally in thickets” and near Vatuwaq it was found to be a “very frequent weed in disturbed ground”.  It provides some further evidence that the species was already abundant in several areas before it received serious research attention.

Overview of Piper aduncum specimen at the National Herbarium Leiden

grouped by country and first year of collection

Specimen (and their labels) at the National Herbarium in Leiden. Specimen from Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Philippines and South America - images are clickeable.

Indonesia                

Bogor (1893)	Bogor (1894)	Batavia (1925)
West Java Banten (1937)	Bogor (1949)	Samarinda (1952)
New Guinea Waigeo (1955)	New Guinea Jayapura (1957)	West Java (1959)
New Guinea Biak (1960)	Moluccas (1974)	Kalimantan (1978)
Celebes (1985)

Malaysia  

Papua New Guinea  

Fiji  

Philippines  

South America