Description:

• Trees or shrubs, sometimes herbaceous or woody climbers with tendrils, undershrubs, or herbs, often monoecious or dioecious
• Leaves alternate, compound or sometimes simple; stipules 0 or small (climbers)
• Flowers usually unisexual, regular or irregular, small; mainly in racemes or panicles, rarely in clusters or solitary
• Calyx 4- or 5-segmented or united at base
• Petals 0 or 3-5, free, equal or unequal in size, often with a scale or other appendage on face
• Disc annular, cupular, or unilateral, rarely rudimentary
• Stamens arising within disc, 5-24, often 8; filaments free, often hairy; anthers 2-thecous
• Ovary superior, entire, lobed, or divided nearly to base, 2- or 3(4-6)-locular, with 1 or 2(3) axile or sometimes basal ovules in each locule; style 1(2 or 3), sometimes 3-6-fid; stigma simple, rarely lobed
• Fruit a drupe or capsule, sometimes bladdery or winged (samara)
• Seeds usually solitary, without endosperm, often with an arillode

Nomenclature:

• Sapindaceae
  • Sonder: 236 (1860)
  • Radlkofer: 276 (1895)
  • Exell: 494 (1966)
  • Friedrich-Holzhammer: 1 (1968)
  • Fouilloy & Hallé: 1 (1973)
  • Davies & Verdcourt: 1 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 147, species 2000; cosmopolitan in tropics and subtropics
• Southern Africa: Genera 14, species 27

References:

• DAVIES, F.G. & VERDCOURT, B. 1998. Flora of tropical East Africa. Sapindaceae
• EXELL, A.W. 1966. Sapindaceae. Flora zambesiaca 2, 2
• FOUILLOY, R. & HALLÉ, N. 1973. Sapindacées. Flore du Cameroun 16. Also reprinted in Flore du Gabon 23
• FRIEDRICH-HOLZHAMMER, M. 1968. Sapindaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 75
• RADLKOFER, L. 1895. Sapindaceae. Die natürlichen Planzenfamilien 3, 5
• SONDER, O.W. 1860. Sapindaceae. Flora capensis 1

Resources:

• Key to Sapindaceae genera

• Sapindaceae genera: