Piper guahamense

Piper guahamense, the Guam pepper ''', is a plant in the family Piperaceae, and is endemic to the Mariana Islands.

Description and habitat

P. guahamense morphologically resembles the kava pepper, and it has a similar aroma and taste. It is common in shady, moist forests and streamside.

Taxonomy

Piper guahamense was first classified as being in the Macropiper genus by in 1839 by Dutch botanist Friedrich Miquel.
The name Piper guahamense was first recorded in 1869 in the 16th volume of Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis by Swiss botanist, Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle. However, later authors grouped it into the narrower genus Macropiper, which consisted of only 9 species, all in the Pacific Ocean. The species is now subsumed under the large genus Piper.

Ecology

Several species of insect have been recovered exclusively from Piper guahamense. The following is a list of endemic insects that are possibly host-specific. All were collected during a 1911 and 1936 entomological surveys of the island:

The following insects are endemic to the Marianas or Micronesia and have been observed on Piper guahamense and other plant species: a spittlebug, a rove beetle, an ant-like leaf beetle, a tumbling flower beetle, a chalcid wasp, three planthoppers, and four true weevils .
Non-endemic invertebrates collected from Piper guahamense include a plant bug '', a chalcicoid wasp, and a fungus weevil.