Piperaceae

Leaves and inflorescences of Piper auritum

The pepper family ( Piperaceae ) are a family of plants of the order of the pepper -like ( Piperales ). This family includes 13 genera with about 1920 species. The most important for the human species from this family is the pepper ( Piper ). The pepper plants come in front of the entire subtropics to tropics.

Description

There are woody plants: small trees and erect, twining or twining shrubs ( lianas ) or annual to perennial herbaceous plants. There are often formed rhizomes. Some species are aromatic scented. Plant parts can be hairy to glabrous or covered with glands. They grow terrestrial or epiphytic; some species are succulent. The usually alternate and arranged spirally or rarely opposite or whorled, usually stalked leaves are simple and herbaceous or fleshy. The leaf margin is smooth. Stipules are usually available and are often grown together with the petioles.

The flowers are arranged in terminal, flask-shaped, aged men inflorescences; often it is doldige, racemose inflorescences at Zippelia. Each flower is almost always without pedicel about a small wrapper. The small flowers are hermaphrodite or unisexual by Piper; if they are then the unisexual species are mostly dioecious getrenntgeschlechtig ( dioecious ). The flowers do not bloom. There are usually one to ten free stamens present. Part of the stamens can be converted to staminodes. The (two to five) usually four carpels are fused to a constant above, einfächerigen ovary, which contains with basal placentation only one ovule. The pen usually end in three to four scars.

Are formed berries or stone fruits, they contain only one seed. The seed has only sparse endosperm, much starchy Perisperm and a tiny embryo.

Ingredients

The essential oils usually contain alkaloids.

System

The genus Peperomia once formed an independent family Peperomiaceae ACSmith, now it is assigned to the Piperaceae. The Piperaceae family in 1792 by Paul Dietrich Giseke in Praelectiones in ordines naturales plantarum, S. 123, and on 13 June 1824 by Carl Adolf Agardh in Aphor. Bot, p.201 described. Type genus is L. Piper.

The pepper family ( Piperaceae ) family since M.-S. Samain et al. 2008 in three subfamilies newly subdivided. Before that there were the two subfamilies Piperoideae and Peperomioideae. Today, five genera with about 3600 species belong to the family. If different species have been separated from the genus Piper, it can be up to ten genera more.

• Piperoideae Arnott ( Syn: Peperomioideae ): With two genera and about 3600 species: Peperomia ( Peperomia Ruiz & Pav ): With about 1600 species.
• Pepper ( Piper L., Syn: Anderssoniopiper Trel, Arctottonia Trel, Artanthe Miq, Chavica Miq, Discipiper Trel & Stehlé, Lepianthes Raf, Lindeniopiper Trel, Macropiper Miq, Ottonia Spreng, Pleiostachyopiper Trel. .. .. .. .. ., Pleistachyopiper Trel, Pothomorphe Miq, Trianaeopiper Trel ): .. . with about 2000 species.

• Zippelioideae Samain & Wanke: With two genera and six species. It has a disjoint area: With occurrence of China to the Malay Archipelago and in Central and South America. Zippelia flower, with only one type: Zippelia begoniifolia flower ex Schultes & JHSchultes in tropical Asia.

• Verhuellioideae Samain & Wanke, with only one genus: Verhuellia Miq. With three kinds of Cuba and Hispaniola.

Use

Some species are used as ornamental plants.

Peperomia blanda, tetraphylla Peperomia and Piper nigrum are used in Chinese medicine. Hainanense Piper, Piper hancei, hongkongense Piper, Piper nigrum, Piper sarmentosum, Piper wallichii, Piper and Piper wangii yunnanense supply spices.

Swell

• The Piperaceae at the APWebsite family. (Section Description and systematics)
• Yung- chien Tseng, Nianhe Xia & Michael G. Gilbert: Piperaceae in Flora of China, Volume 4, 1999, p 110: Online. (Section Description and systematics)
• David E. Boufford: Piperaceae in Flora of North America, Volume 3, 1993: Online. (Section Description and systematics)
• Family Description DELTA; there without Peperomia.
• M. C. Tebbs: Piperaceae in Kubitzki Klaus et al. Families and Genera of Vascular The Plants. II Flowering Plants - Dicotyledons, Springer-Verlag: Berlin, 1993, ISBN 3-540-55509-9. .
• M. A. Jaramillo, S. Paul, P. S. Manos & E. A. Rooms:. Phylogenetic relationships of the periantless Piperales reconstructing the evolution of floral development, in International Journal of Plant Science, Vol 165, No. 3, 2004, pp. 403-416.