Piper methysticum G.Forst.
English names not checked: Wikidata's common names were not read for this page.
12 photographs › Summary
Kava or kava kava (Piper methysticum: Latin 'pepper' and Latinized Greek 'intoxicating') is a plant in the pepper family, native to the Pacific Islands. The name kava is from Tongan and Marquesan, meaning 'bitter'. Kava can refer to either the plant or a psychoactive beverage made from its root. The beverage is a traditional ceremonial and recreational drink from Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. More on Wikipedia ›
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Kava", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant, listed under the family Piperaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “perennial or rhizomatous geophyte”, “wet tropical”.
How this section is made
Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.
Group. Listed under the family Piperaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “perennial or rhizomatous geophyte”, “wet tropical”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.
Climate across the habitat
Natural habitat
This species has no GBIF key of its own. Its records are GBIF's under the keys of the names Kew's World Checklist holds as this plant: 4186474 (Macropiper methysticum (G.Forst.) Hook. & Arn., 191 records), 7866972 (Macropiper methysticum Miq., 0 records). No name was matched to GBIF; the keys are read from Kew's synonymy. How.
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (6).
Related
Other Piper 44 in the reference
Piper aduncum Spiked pepper Photo: CC BY, Alexis López Hernández
Piper amalago Wall Purslane Photo: CC BY, avocat
Piper arboreum Tree pepper Photo: CC BY, Diogo Luiz
Piper artanthe Piperaceae Photo: CC BY, Nicolás Baresch Uribe
Piper auritum Vera Cruz pepper Photo: CC BY, T R Shankar Raman
Piper barbatum Piperaceae Photo: CC0, author not stated
Piper betle Betel pepper Photo: CC BY, 胡正恆(Jackson Hu)
Piper borbonense Madagascan Wild Pepper Photo: CC BY, yellowplant
Piper bredemeyeri Piperaceae Photo: CC BY, Arthur de Jesús Chavarría Pérez
Piper capense African long pepper Photo: CC BY, Shaun Swanepoel
Piper cernuum Piperaceae Photo: CC BY, Fabrício Mil Homens Riella
Piper consanguineum Piperaceae Photo: CC BY, Guillaume Delaitre all 45 ›Names & registers
Also known as Piper inebrians; Piper spurium; Methysticum esculentum; Methysticum methysticum; Macropiper methysticum. (WCVP, RBG Kew)
The record
Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →
Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
kew.names answeredas of 2026-06-04Kew's entry Piper methysticum G.Forst. (plant_name_id 2569602), read from Kew's names filegbif.species not askedGBIF's backbone holds no one accepted species of this name, and a name it holds only as another species' synonym is not taken for this one, so GBIF's records were not askedgbif.synonyms not askedGBIF's backbone holds no one accepted species of this name, and a name it holds only as another species' synonym is not taken for this one, so GBIF's records were not askedgbif.vernacular not askedGBIF's backbone holds no one accepted species of this name, and a name it holds only as another species' synonym is not taken for this one, so GBIF's records were not askedwcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredasked 2026-10-22this species has no GBIF key of its own; its records are read under GBIF's keys for the names Kew's file holds as this plant, never by a name matched; GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 191 records of GBIF's key 4186474, Macropiper methysticum (G.Forst.) Hook. & Arn. (Kew's file holds it as Macropiper methysticum (G.Forst.) Miq. (synonym under Piper methysticum G.Forst.)): the GBIF download; 0 records of GBIF's key 7866972, Macropiper methysticum Miq. (Kew's file holds it as Macropiper methysticum (G.Forst.) Miq. (synonym under Piper methysticum G.Forst.)): GBIF occurrence search API; 5 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (3 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 2 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22only 1 distinct land cell of the climate grid holds an in-range record placed to within 10 km; three are needed for an envelopewikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22found by Kew's IPNI identifier 198437-2, POWO 198437-2wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22Wikipedia's article Kava, the English article of this species' Wikidata item (Q161067)inat.photos.wild not askedinat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media not askedGBIF's backbone holds no one accepted species of this name, and a name it holds only as another species' synonym is not taken for this one, so GBIF's records were not askedcommons answeredasked 2026-10-22openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 21 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.