Description :

• Shrubs, subshrubs, sometimes subscandent, or small trees; branches sometimes lepidote or lenticellate
• Leaves simply imparipinnate, opposite, petiolate; leaflets ovate to elliptic, or lanceolate, terminal leaflets often acute or acuminate, sessile, crenate or serrate
• Flowers pedicellate, in dense, terminal or subterminal racemes or racemose panicles; bracts ± linear or lanceolate
• Calyx cupular or elongate-cupular, 5-dentate, ± puberulous or somewhat lepidote, ciliate
• Corolla orange (natural) or scarlet, yellow or pink (cultivated), narrowly funnel-shaped and a little curved, or tubular-campanulate above a short, narrow base; tube glabrous outside, with some papillae or hairs within, mostly in lower part; limb bilabiate, all 5 lobes elliptic, obtuse
• Stamens 4, didynamous, arising in lower part of corolla tube, sometimes adnate to beyond middle, exserted or included; filaments terete, with stalked glands on lower part; anthers linear-oblong, thecae connate in upper third and slightly divergent below or divaricate and not apically fused; staminode 0 or 1
• Nectary cupular-pulvinate
• Ovary oblong or narrowly cylindrical, bilocular; ovules many in 2 or 4 series per locule; style terete, exserted; stigma elliptic, bilobed
• Fruit a capsule, linear-oblong and somewhat curved, or linear and straight, tapering at ends, compressed parallel to septum but dehiscing perpendicularly to it; valves smooth or wrinkle-ridged
• Seeds thin with 2 hyaline, membranous wings, sharply demarcated from seed body and almost surrounding it
• x = 9 (17) (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Tecoma Juss.
  • Jussieu: 139 (1789)
  • Van Steenis: 134 (1977)
  • Dos Santos & Miller: 356 (1992)
  • Gentry: 273 (1992)
  • Brummitt: 419 (1974)
  • Brummitt: 421 (1992)
  • Henderson: 149 (1995)
  • Mabberley: 702 (1997)
• Tecomaria (Endl.) Spach
  • Spach: 137 (1838)
  • Sprague: 448 (1904)
  • Phillips: t. 903 (1943)
  • Gentry: 161 (1977)
  • Diniz: 64 (1988)
  • Diniz: 11 (1993)
  • Van Wyk & Van Wyk: 416 (1997)

Synonomy Notes:

• Tecomaria (Endl.) Spach was reduced to synonymy under Tecoma by Van Steenis (1977), followed by Gentry (1992), contrary to his earlier view (Gentry 1977). The latter author maintained that the only character of potential generic significance is the manner in which the two thecae of the anthers diverge. As other bignoniaceous genera include a variety of thecae, Gentry opined that this difference does not seem to warrant generic separation. In addition, the two genera are interfertile and their wood anatomy is very similar (Dos Santos & Miller 1992). Brummitt (1992) and Mabberley (1997) use Tecoma but Diniz (1993) and Van Wyk & Van Wyk (1997) retain Tecomaria

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 13, 12 in Neotropics, 1 or 2 in Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 1 or 2: Tecoma capensis (Thunb.) Lindl.; from Messina (Northern Province) to Barberton (Mpumalanga) and through KwaZulu-Natal to Uitenhage (Eastern Cape); also in Swaziland; widely cultivated as an ornamental; * Tecoma stans (L.) Juss. ex Humb., Bonpl. & Kunth var. stans , an exotic, is becoming naturalised mainly in warmer areas and has been proposed as a declared invader