Piperaceae
Family of flowering plants in the order Piperales
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Piperaceae members may be small trees, shrubs, or herbs. The family's distribution is best described as pantropical. The best-known species, Piper nigrum, yields most peppercorns that are used as spices, including black pepper, although its relatives in the family include many other spices.
Description
Members of pepper family are small trees, shrubs, or perennial or annual herbs. The plants are often rhizomatous and can be terrestrial or epiphytic. The stems can be either simple or branched.
The leaves are simple with entire margins, and are positioned at the base of the plant or along the stem, and can be alternate, opposite, or whorled in arrangement. Stipules are usually present, as are petioles. The leaves are often noticeably aromatic when crushed.
The inflorescences (in the form of spikes) are terminal, opposite the leaves, or located in the axils. The flowers are bisexual, with no perianth, and each subtended by a peltate bract. There are 2–6 stamens, which are hypogynous, with 2-locular anthers. There are usually three or four stigmas attached to a single pistil per flower, which is 1 or 3–4 carpellate. The ovary is 1-locular, and superior.
The fruits are drupelike, with a single seed per fruit. The seeds have a minute embryo, and mealy perisperm.
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Taxonomy
The APG III system of 2009 recognizes this family and assigns it to the order Piperales in the unranked clade magnoliids. The family consists of five genera: Piper, Peperomia, Zippelia, Manekia, and Verhuellia. The previously recognised Pacific genus Macropiper, was recently merged into Piper. A tentative cladogram showing relationships based on Wanke et al. (2007) is shown below. This phylogeny was based on 6,000 base pairs of chloroplast DNA. Only recently has it become clear that Verhuellia is sister to the other four genera in the family.
The group contains roughly 3,600 currently accepted species in five genera. The vast majority of species can be found within the two main genera Piper (2,171 species) and Peperomia (over 1,000 species).
Etymology
The name Piperaceae is derived from the Sanskrit term pippali (पिप्पलि).
The family is unrelated to the South American family Solanaceae (the nightshades), which includes bell and chili peppers; Columbian-era Europeans thought the spicy fruits were a variety of the black pepper.
Distribution and habitat
The distribution of this group is best described as pantropical.
Uses
The best-known species, Piper nigrum, yields most peppercorns that are used as spices, including black pepper, although its relatives in the family include many other spices.
Numerous members of the family are used in the traditional medicine of indigenous population for a wide variety of illnesses. Many studies have been undertaken to investigate these uses, with a large number of them focusing especially on the active ingredient Piperine and related compounds found in many members of this family, especially black pepper, long pepper and Betel, as well as kavalactones found in Kava.