Description:

• Perennial or annual herbs or shrubs, terrestrial or epiphytic, with creeping, decumbent or erect, often succulent stems, often with swollen nodes, sometimes aromatic, with spherical oil cells; sometimes dioecious or monoecious but usually with bisexual flowers; stems with scattered vascular bundles; indumentum of simple or multicellular hairs or 0; pearl glands and clear or coloured pellucid glands often present
• Leaves alternate, opposite or verticillate, succulent or membranous, simple, entire, pinnately or palmately nerved, petiolate; stipules 0 or adnate to petiole
• Inflorescence usually a dense spike, or racemose, axillary, terminal or leaf-opposed, pedunculate
• Flowers bisexual, sometimes unisexual, hypogynous, minute, each subtended by a peltate bract
• Perianth 0
• Stamens 2; filaments free to partly fused; anthers often articulated on filaments, with 2 distinct or confluent thecae, with longitudinal slits
• Ovary superior, with 1 or 2 fused carpels, 1-locular; ovule solitary, basal, erect, orthotropous; styles 1-4(5), short, relatively long or 0; stigmas 1 or 2, capitate, linear or penicillate
• Fruit a drupe, indehiscent, sometimes viscid, with a succulent, thin or dry pericarp
• Seed 1, ± globose, ovoid, or oblong in outline, with testa usually membranous or rather fleshy; endosperm sparse; perisperm copious; embryo minute

Classification Notes:

• The herbaceous Peperomia and some related genera are sometimes placed in a separate family, the Peperomiaceae (Airy Shaw 1973), that differs from Piper mainly in being herbaceous; it has even more reduced flowers, comprising a single carpel and two anthers subtended by one bract. Piper nigrum L. is the source of pepper

Nomenclature:

• Piperaceae
  • Agardh: 201 (1824)
  • Miquel: 1 (1843-1844)
  • Endlicher: 14 (1847)
  • Candolle: 235 (1869)
  • Bentham: 125 (1880)
  • Engler: 3 (1888)
  • Yuncker: 1 (1958)
  • Airy Shaw: 905 (1973)
  • Burger: 345 (1977)
  • Tebbs: 516 (1993)
  • Diniz: 69 (1996)
  • Verdcourt: 1 (1996)
  • Diniz: 24 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 15, species ± 2 000, pantropical, mostly in rain forests
• Southern Africa: Genera 2, species 6

References:

• AGARDH, C.A. 1824. Piperaceae. Aphorismi botanici 14. Berling, Lund
• AIRY SHAW, H.K. 1973. Piperaceae & Peperomiaceae. In J.C. Willis, A dictionary of the flowering plants and ferns, edn 8. Cambridge University Press
• BENTHAM, G. 1880. Piperaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 3. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• BURGER, W.C. 1977. The PIPERALES and the monocots. Botanical Review 43
• CANDOLLE, A.C.P. DE. 1869. Piperaceae. In A. de Candolle, Prodromus 16,1. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
• DINIZ, M.A. 1996. Piperaceae of the Flora zambesiaca area. Kirkia 16,1
• DINIZ, M.A. 1997. Piperaceae. Flora zambesiaca 9,2
• ENDLICHER, S. L. 1847. Piperaceae. Tribus Peperomieae & Tribus Pipereae. Genera plantarum supplement quartum. Beck, Vienna
• ENGLER, A. 1888. Piperaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 3,1
• MIQUEL, F.A.W. 1843-1844. Systema piperacearum. Kramers, Rotterdam
• TEBBS, M.C. 1993. Piperaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• VERDCOURT, B. 1996. Flora of tropical East Africa. Piperaceae
• YUNCKER, T.G. 1958. The Piperaceae - a family profile. Brittonia 10

Resources:

• Key to Piperaceae genera

• Piperaceae genera: