[2] All members of Piriqueta have the same floral organization: short calyx tubes that are attached to petal claws, coronas, and filaments.

Various members of Piriqueta, see list below, have a unique reproductive system called distyly, in which, two floral morphs are present which differ in their placement of anthers and style length.

[2] Piriqueta was originally described in 1775 by J. F. B. Fusée Aublet in Histoire des plantes de la Guiane Françoise, 1877.

Aublet describes P. villosa as being deciduous, with ovate hairy leaflets, having five "scaly" petals with cup alternation, five filaments, ovate and bilocular anthers, five six-branched pistils with flat fleshy wide stigmas, and being covered in red stiff hairs.

Members of Piriqueta have native ranges throughout tropical and subtropical regions of North, Central, and South America.