Description:

• Trees, shrubs, some scrambling, or climbers, rarely spiny, with several types of glands but not mucilaginous
• Leaves opposite or sometimes whorled, at times solitary or fascicled on dwarf shoots, usually compound, with articulated leaflets, sometimes simple, terminal leaflet sometimes a tendril; stipules 0, but sometimes with pseudostipules (modified external scales of axillary bud)
• Flowers bisexual, ± irregular, often large and brightly coloured, in terminal or lateral panicles or racemes that sometimes terminate in cymose branching, or sometimes borne on old wood
• Calyx gamosepalous, shortly (2-4)5(6)-lobed or -toothed or spathaceous, shorter than corolla tube
• Corolla gamopetalous, 5(6 or 7)-lobed; often bilabiate with posterior lip usually bilobed, anterior lip trilobed; rarely regular; limb usually imbricate, shorter than tube; tube conspicuous, tubular to campanulate or funnel-shaped, often pilose inside around base of stamens
• Stamens usually 4, didynamous, sometimes with a posterior staminode, or 5 and equal, arising in corolla tube, usually ± at rim of narrow basal part, alternating with corolla lobes; filaments filiform or flattened, slightly thickened and often dilated and/or hairy at base; anthers bithecate, attached at apex, with parallel, divergent or divaricate thecae, dehiscing longitudinally, introrse
• Nectary/disc usually present, hypogynous, symmetric, annular or cupular
• Ovary superior, syncarpous, bicarpellate, usually bilocular and not divided at this stage by a false septum, with placentation axile, or rarely unilocular with parietal placentation; ovules many, anatropous, erect, in 2-several rows per locule; style simple, filiform or somewhat stout; stigma of 2 flattened, ovate or oblong lobes
• Fruit typically a bivalved, loculicidal or septicidal capsule, with valves splitting perpendicularly or parallel to septum respectively, or rarely a fleshy and indehiscent berry
• Seeds usually flat, with a broad, hyaline wing, rarely wingless; endosperm 0

Nomenclature:

• Bignoniaceae
  • Sprague: 447 (1904)
  • Merxmüller & Schreiber: 1 (1967)
  • Gentry: 1 (1977)
  • Palgrave: 827 (1977)
  • Van Steenis: 114 (1977)
  • Goldblatt & Gentry: 475 (1979)
  • Gentry: 1 (1980)
  • Diniz: 61 (1988)
  • Gentry: 1 (1992)
  • Diniz: 11 (1993)
  • Mabberley: 87 (1997)
  • Van Wyk & Van Wyk: 21, 414 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 109, species ± 750, cosmopolitan but mostly tropical, especially South America
• Southern Africa: Genera 8 (2 naturalised), species 13, widespread with exception of Lesotho; many exotic ornamentals including *Jacaranda, Tecoma, *Dolichandrone, *Macfadyena and *Spathodia

References:

• DINIZ, M.A. 1988. Bignoniaceae. Flora zambesiaca 8,3
• DINIZ, M.A. 1993. Bignoniaceae. Conspectus florae angolensis 122
• GOLDBLATT, P. & GENTRY, A.H. 1979. Cytology of Bignoniaceae. Botaniska Notiser 132
• GENTRY, A.H. 1977. Bignoniaceae. Flora of Ecuador 7
• GENTRY, A.H. 1980. Bignoniaceae - Part I (Crescentieae and Tourrettieae). Flora neotropica, Monograph 25 (I)
• GENTRY, A.H. 1992. Bignoniaceae - Part II (Tribe Tecomeae). Flora neotropica, Monograph 25 (II)
• MABBERLEY, D.J. 1997. The plant-book, edn 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• MERXMÜLLER, H. & SCHREIBER, A. 1967. Bignoniaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 128
• PALGRAVE, K.C. 1977. Trees of southern Africa. Struik, Cape Town
• SPRAGUE, T.A. 1904. Bignoniaceae. Flora capensis 4, 2
• VAN STEENIS, C.G.G.J. 1977. Bignoniaceae. Flora malesiana, ser. I, 8 (2)
• VAN WYK, B. & VAN WYK, P. 1997. Field guide to trees of southern Africa. Struik, Cape Town

Resources:

• Key to Bignoniaceae genera

• Bignoniaceae genera: