Greek peperi—pepper, homoios—resembling.
Mostly small, tough or fleshy herbs, often epiphytic in the wild. Leaves mostly alternate, fleshy, without stipules. Flowers in a fleshy sometimes branched, bracted spike, minute, each with a bract, bisexual with 2 stamens and a single stigma. Perianth absent. Carpel 1.
A genus sometimes placed in the family Peperomiaceae. Generally grown as indoor foliage plants. P. leptostachya Hook. & Arn. from NSW, Qld and the Pacific region is occasionally grown; it has opposite leaves that are 5-veined from the base.
Stem or leaf cuttings.
Leaves fleshy; flowers in tail-like spikes; perianth absent.
About 1000 species tropics especially C and northern S America (Australia has 5 species).
McKendrick (1987), Argent (1989).
Source: (1997). Piperaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
