Piper betle (Introduced)

A very popular plant, so we have people who chew this in USA also.. may be mostly Indian.. thanks Sir..

yes, …  Its nice to see the plant itself. DEAR ALL:  But it fills me with foreboding. may be we may get fined sooner or later for the pan pichkari .. Salman Rushdi made the west aware of that bad habit in a wide scale. (you may recall he went on and on about such uncouth behaviors’  in his booker of the booker book. Indians are fined against it in numerous countries including very vigorously in Singapore to name one. I always hope that some uncouth human does not do in California, because in Little India in Queens NY several immigrants were already warned by authorities..to put it mildly. Please look up  :
((On Jackson Heights Sidewalks, a Treat’s Messy Aftermath  By NICHOLAS HIRSHON   Published: August 12, 2012.  facebook even has a page

Though sometimes I eat pan after dinner if the host offers and enjoy it or as a medicine for my chest problems. But do detest the spitting. It is not only pan but tobacco chewers also spit all over.

yes
i appreciate your writing and sentiments.
If paan helps you in your chest problems, by all means chew a fresh thin small lightest thinnest paan you can find (like good benarasi paans) cut it up, mix with a little sugar crystal and keep in a small pill box and chew.  and get the juice down your throat.   You could also cut up say a cup paan and make a strong tea. to drink.
BUT about the bad social  habits though …..

One person at a time is what I do… i describe the cancer the tobacco in gutka and mouth mucous membrane and tooth decay and damage strong alkali and chemicals in paan cause.  ANd other addictions that these things bring in  in their wake. Usually these are poor labor intensive workers taxi drivers rickshaw wallahs sundry other labor folks sometimes teachers students or even some univ professors…
all have some arguments in favor of their habits.
but sooner or later in that 10 or 20 minutes of our conversation following the initial arguments and bravado,  they all come down to asking ( sometimes begging) if I would give them some free medical therapy for some oral cancers in their family … or someone very close…   they all come down to telling me how poor they are and how they  can not  afford therapy. And they start bad mouthing doctors hospitals government anybody but themselves. I bring them to appropriate places if possible to do so, but I also have them count the cost // price of each gutka times per day times per week times per year times number of years…   and when they arrive at the large number of rupees it opens their eyes that they bought the cancer at such a price and will have to pay for it further when the disease sets in.
And with spitting… I tell them about germs of all kinds including TB and such in addition to the sanitary problem.
spitting problem is more intractable.  they are not as afraid of the germs as they are of cancer.  And spitting is a little cultural basis and some macho sentiments peek thru when they they are defending their behaviour.
so there it is

In spite of this discussion I look forward to all the piper betle submissions of all those myriad varieties and cultivars and regional horticultural adventures.
Please lets see them , thanks in advance.

Piperaceae, Lauraceae and Thymelaeaceae Fortnight :: Piperaceae :: Piper betle :: MNP :: ARKSEP-06 : 3 posts by 2 authors. Attachments (3).
Attached are pictures of Piper betle captured at MNP in April 2014.
Requested to please validate the ID. 

TSPNOV2015-77-121: Images of Piper betle (Piperaceae) : 1 post by 1 author. Attachments (4)

SK1276 11 JUL 2018 : 7 posts by 2 authors. Attachments (7)- around 500 kb each.

Can we get help from … ? 

To me look somewhat different from images at Piper longum 

Paper on Anatomy of Piper: One of our papers has just been published 🙂
However, its purely of descriptive anatomy by nature :
We always appreciate the external beauty of plants…but its equally enjoyable and thrilling to study their internal make-up, too…
Here is the link for free access to full article:
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperID=22192
…, I hear you… will surely post SEM pics whenever I come up with some interesting ones…
Here are some from our ‘beloved’ betel leaf, Piper betle…

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