Piperales

Piperales, order of flowering plants comprising 3 families, 17 genera, and 4,170 species. Along with the orders Laurales, Magnoliales, and Canellales, Piperales forms the magnoliid clade, which is an early evolutionary branch in the angiosperm tree; the clade corresponds to part of the subclass Magnoliidae under the old Cronquist botanical classification system.

Many Piperales species are cultivated ornamentals, including lizard’s tail (Saururus cernuus); Peperomia species; Anemopsis, from southwestern North America; Houttuynia, a ground cover from Asia; wild ginger (Asarum); and vining Aristolochia species, some known as Dutchman’s pipe. Piper nigrum is the main source of the spicy condiment known as black pepper (but also green or white pepper).

Common characteristics

Members of the order Piperales often have several features also found in monocotyledons, including discrete vascular bundles in the stem and threefold flower parts. Although there are woody members, this order is characteristically herbaceous and often has swollen leaf nodes. Reproduction by seeds is the main method of species dispersal in Piperales, but fragmentation of rhizomes in the lizard’s-tail family assures vegetative propagation. The drupe is the prevailing fruit type in Piperaceae, or the pepper family, whereas dry fruits characterize the four other families.

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Families

Saururaceae, the lizard’s-tail family, is native to North America and Southeast Asia. It includes five genera and six species, most of them aromatic herbs with creeping rhizomes (horizontal stems). The plants generally inhabit wet areas.

The largest family in Piperales is Piperaceae, which is pantropical and includes 5 genera and some 3,600 species, most of them in the large genera Peperomia and Piper (the black pepper genus). Saururaceae and Piperaceae are closely related. Their inflorescences (flower clusters) are slender, spikelike, and covered with inconspicuous closely appressed flowers. Even though individual flowers are small, the floral spikes are showy, and in several Saururaceae species the spikes resemble a single flower because of the expanded bracts that arise below the inflorescence. In Saururus the elongate cluster bends at its tip to suggest the fanciful appellation “lizard’s tail.” Other features common to most species of these two families include a sheathing leaf base, a lack of sepals and petals, bisexual flowers (stamens and carpels in the same flower), and the presence of one erect ovule per ovary chamber.

Aristolochiaceae, the birthwort family, includes about 590 species of woody vines, shrubs, and herbaceous species. Most species are distributed in the tropics of both hemispheres, though several genera are in the temperate zone. Compared with the flowers of other Piperales families, those of Aristolochiaceae are usually large, and some trap pollinating flies that are lured by unpleasant smells. Asarum and Saruma are herbaceous genera of the north temperate zone, most diverse in eastern Asia. Aristolochia includes more than 400 species of vines and herbs, many of them tropical. It is this group that is sometimes divided into two or four separate genera.

Lactoris fernandeziana, the only species in Lactoris (formerly of the family Lactoridaceae), is found on one island of the Juan Fernández Archipelago, off the coast of Chile. The leaves have a sheathing base, and the flowers occur singly or in small clusters along the stem. The flower stalks, or petioles, appear to arise from a sheathing leaf base that lacks a leaf blade. Lactoris pollen has been recovered in southern Africa from sediments dating back to the Late Cretaceous Epoch (100.5 million to 66 million years ago).

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The former family Hydnoraceae is now a small subfamily of Aristolochiaceae, with around 10 species in two genera. They are terrestrial parasitic plants that lack leaves and chlorophyll. The large flowers have a single three-parted perianth whorl and an inferior ovary; they are foul-smelling and are pollinated by flies and beetles. Prosopanche occurs in Central and South America, and Hydnora occurs in Africa, Madagascar, and the Arabian Peninsula. The southern African Hydnora triceps grows exclusively on succulent species of Euphorbia.