Vitex is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae. It has about 200–250 species; as of August 2025 the Plants of the World Online database accepts 211 species. Common names include chaste tree or chastetree, traditionally referring to V. agnus-castus, but often applied to other species, as well, and pūriri for the New Zealand species V. lucens.

Species of Vitex are native throughout the tropics and subtropics, with a few species in warm-temperate Eurasia and one in New Zealand.

A number species are grown in cultivation. V. agnus-castus and V. negundo are the species most often planted in warm temperate European gardens; several others are frequently grown in the tropics. Most of the cultivated species serve as ornamental plants. Some provide valuable timber. The flexible twigs of some species are used in basket weaving. Some of the aromatic species are used medicinally or to repel mosquitos.

The genus Vitex was named by Linnaeus in Species Plantarum in 1753. Vitex was the name used by Pliny the Elder for V. agnus-castus. It is derived from the Latin vieo, meaning to weave or to tie up, a reference to the use of V. agnus-castus in basketry.

As a result of phylogenetic studies of DNA sequences, Vitex is one of several genera that were transferred from the Verbenaceae to the Lamiaceae in the 1990s. It is the largest genus in the subfamily Viticoideae of Lamiaceae. Taxon sampling in molecular phylogenetic studies has never been sufficient to test the monophyly of the Viticoideae, but it is generally thought to be an unnatural group. The subfamily is probably diphyletic, with Premna, Gmelina, and Cornutia constituting one clade, and with Vitex, Petitia, Pseudocarpidium, and Teijsmanniodendron constituting the other.

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