a genus of plants of the family Rutaceae. The plants are small evergreen trees or shrubs. The leaves are compound and odd-pinnate. The flowers are small, four- or five-parted, and in racemes. The fruit is a capsule. There are about 20 species, distributed in tropical America and in the West Indies. In the USSR, P. pennatifolius is cultivated on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. A low shrub or tree attaining 4 m in height, the species has thick, long, brownish purple racemes. Its leaves and the leaves of some other species of Pilocarpus yield alkaloids, including pilocarpine, which is used medicinally.