ABSTRACT
The genus Piper was established by Linnaeus (1753) in his Species Plantarum in which he recognised 17 species in the Piper family, all of which were included in the same genus. The genus name Piper was derived, probably from the Greek name for black pepper, Peperi and according to Rosengarten (1973) most European names for black pepper were derived from the Sanskrit root Pippali, the name for long pepper (Piper longum). The second genus in the family, Peperomia, was introduced in 1794 by Ruiz and Pavon. The family name Piperaceae was first used by L.C.Rich in Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth’s Nova Genera et Species Plantarum in 1815 (Yuncker 1958). In the years that followed a number of additional genera, mostly segregates from Piper were described by Sprengel, Kunth, Miquel and others. Among the early studies the important ones were those of Ruiz and Pavon (1798) on flora of Peru and Chile; Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth (1815) based on their collections from South America and that of Blume (1826) on East Indian species. Kunth (1839) published an important paper on 136 Latin American species mainly on Piper and segregate genera. However the first monographic study was that of F.A.W Miquel. His classic, Systema Piperacearum (1843), included all the species known in the family at that time. Miquel subdivided Piperaceae into two tribes Pipereae and Peperomeae. The former consisted of 15 genera and 304 species and the latter 5 genera and 209 species. In 1869 De Candolle monographed the family in its entirety for the Prodromus. In this he recognized more than 1000 species in the two genera, Piper and Peperomia. De Candolle continued to work on Piperaceae till his death in 1918. The key to the family prepared by him was published posthumously in 1923, under the name “Piperacearum Clavis Analytica”. In this work keys were provided for over 3000 species and varieties. William Trelease took up studies on Piperaceae from where De Condolle left. He made extensive collections of American Piperaceae which led to the revision of the Piperaceae of the Northern South America by Trelease and Yuncker (1950). Thus Miquel, De Candolle and Trelease were mainly responsible for the systematics of Piperaceae for more than a century.
