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| Piperaceae | ||||||||||
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 Piper nigrum, from Koehler (1887)
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Arctottonia |
Piperaceae is the botanical name for a family of flowering plants. Such a family has been recognized by most taxonomists: it is sometimes known as the "pepper family". The best known species is Piper nigrum, which yields the most famous peppercorns used as a spice, including "black pepper", although its cousins in the famly include many other spices.
The APG II system, of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system, of 1998), also recognizes this family, and assigns it to the order Piperales in the clade magnoliids.
The family consists of about a dozen genera, totalling two to three thousand species of usually aromatic plants. The best known genera are Peperomia and Piper.
External links
- The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, information retrieval.
- Piperaceae in the Flora of North America
- Piperaceae in the Flora of China
- NCBI Taxonomy Browser
