Piperaceae

Aromatic herbs, shrubs, and climbers with swollen jointed nodes; tiny flowers lack any petals or sepals at all, packed edge to edge along a slender fleshy spike, each ripening into a single-seeded drupe — the peppercorn.

Every part of the plant carries pungent aromatic oils — piperine in true pepper gives peppercorns their heat, while betel leaf's essential oils are chewed as a stimulant across South Asia.

To check whether a plant belongs to Piperaceae, compare the leaf arrangement, leaf type, flower symmetry, fruit type, and one distinctive marker together. A single feature can mislead; the family pattern is the combination.