Tasmannia stipitata, Dorrigo Pepper or Northern Pepperbush is a rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 shrub of temperate

Temperate

In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally relatively moderate, rather than extreme hot or cold...

 forests of the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Leaves are fragrant, narrow-lanceolate to narrow-elliptic, 8-13 cm long. Dark bluish to mauve berries follow the flowers on female shrubs. The species is dioecious

Dioecious

Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...

, with male and female flowers on separate plants.

Culinary use

The culinary quality of T. stipitata was recognized in the mid-1980s by horticulturist, Peter Hardwick

Peter Hardwick

Peter Hardwick is an Australian food horticulturist and environmentalist, recognized as an early pioneer of the Australian bushfood industry...

, who gave it the name 'Dorrigo pepper', and Jean-Paul Bruneteau

Jean-Paul Bruneteau

Jean-Paul Bruneteau is a French-Australian chef and author who is credited with playing a pioneering role in the development of an authentic Australian cuisine based on indigenous ingredients....

, then chef at Rowntrees Restaurant, Sydney. It is mainly wild harvested from the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. Dorrigo pepper has a woody peppery note in the leaves and fruit/seed. The hot peppery flavor is derived from polygodial

Polygodial

Polygodial is an active constituent of Dorrigo Pepper, Mountain Pepper, Horopito, Canelo, Paracress and Water-pepper.Chemically it is a drimane-type sesquiterpene dialdehyde of formula C15H22O2.It elicits a warm and pungent flavour....

, an essential oil

Essential oil

An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from plants. Essential oils are also known as volatile oils, ethereal oils or aetherolea, or simply as the "oil of" the plant from which they were extracted, such as oil of clove...

component, common to most species in the family.