Piperaceae
Read about Piperaceae in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Piperaceae (from the genus Piper, an ancient name of pepper). Pepper Family. Fig. 14. Herbs, shrubs, or rarely trees: leaves alternate, rarely opposite or whorled: flowers in dense spikes, bisexual, or unisexual, regular; perianth 0; stamens 1-10; ovary 1-celled; ovule 1, basal; stigmas 1-4, rarely more, sessile: fruit a dry or fleshy berry. There are 9 genera and' about 1,025 species, confined to the tropics. The largest genera are Piper with 600 species and Peperomia with 400 species. The family is related to the Saururaceae, with which it is often united; otherwise it stands alone as a distinct type, the systematic position of which is uncertain. The spicate inflorescence, naked flowers, and 1-celled, 1-seeded ovary are distinctive. The unripe fruit of Piper nigrum (Java, etc.) yields black pepper. The ripe fruit of the same plant yields white pepper. Long pepper is the whole spike of P. longum of India. The drug cubebs is obtained from P. Cubeba. Betel consists of the leaves of P. Betle, which in India are mixed with the areca nut and masticated. From an extraction of the roots of P. methysticum (ava, or kava-kava), mixed with the milk of coconuts, an intoxicating drink is made in the Pacific Islands. Some species of Peperomia are eaten as salads; others chewed as betel. Some genera are in cultivation in America as greenhouse foliage plants: Peperomia, 10 or more species; Piper (Pepper, Black Pepper, Japanese Pepper).CH
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Genera
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References
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
External links
- w:Piperaceae. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
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