Piper is one of the largest genera of flowering plants. The uniformity of its small flowers and the vast number of species in the genus has hindered the development of a stable infrageneric classification. We sampled 575 accessions corresponding to 332 species of Piper for the ITS region and 181 accessions for the psbJ–petA chloroplast intron to further test previous hypotheses about the major clades within Piper. Phylogenetic analyses were performed for each marker separately and in combination. The ITS region alone resolves eleven major clades within Piper, whereas the psbJ–petA intron fails to recover four of these major groupings and provides no resolution at the base of the phylogeny. The combined analysis provides support for ten monophyletic groups and offers the best hypothesis for relationships in Piper. Our massive ITS dataset allows us to assign confidently a large number of species in this \u22giant\u22 genus to a major clade. Piper is here divided into ten major clades for which we provide a morphological description. Various clades and subclades are newly identified here: Peltobryon, Schilleria, Isophyllon, P. cinereum/P. sanctum. The clades described here provide a solid framework for future, and more focused, evolutionary studies. New names and combinations proposed herein include Piper bullulatum, P. hooglandii, and P. melchior

Solanumis one of the world's largest and economically most important plant genera, including 1245 currently accepted species and several major and minor crops (e.g., tomato, potato, brinjal eggplant, scarlet eggplant, Gboma eggplant, lulo, and pepino). Here we provide an overview of the evolution of 25 key morphological traits for the major and minor clades of this giant genus based on stochastic mapping using a well‐sampled recently published phylogeny ofSolanum. The most evolutionarily labile traits (showing >100 transitions across the genus) relate to plant structure (growth form and sympodial unit structure), herbivore defence (glandular trichomes), pollination (corolla shape and colour), and dispersal (fruit colour). Ten further traits show evolutionary lability with 50–100 transitions across the genus (e.g., specialised underground organs, trichome structure, leaf type, inflorescence position and branching, stamen heteromorphism). Our results reveal a number of highly convergent traits inSolanum, including tubers, rhizomes, simple leaves, yellow corollas, heteromorphic anthers, dioecy, and dry fruits, and some unexpected pathways of trait evolution that could be explored in future studies. We show that informally named clades ofSolanumcan be morphologically defined by trait combinations providing a tool for identification and enabling predictive phylogenetic placement of unsampled species.