BIGNONIACEAE

 

BIGNONIACEAE (Trumpet Creeper Family)Mostly tropical.Around 40 species in India mostly in western and southern India and some in Himalayas.
Vegetative characters:Plant type trees,shrubs,woody climbers with tendrils or roots
Stem in climbers:abnormal secondary growth.
The Leaves :Opposite..rarely whorled or alternate
More frequently pinnately compound terminal leaflet often modified to tendril.
Stipules absent.Flowers and Inflorescence:
Inflorescence:Dichasial cyme.
Bracts and bracteoles present.
Flowers :Showy,perfect,hermaphrodite,zygomorphic and hypogynous.
Calyx: gamosepalous,Campanulate.
Corolla :Gamopetalous,Bell or funnel shaped. % subequal lobes or bilabiate-Upper lip 2lobes;Lower lip 3lobes.
Stamens : 4 didynamous 5th reduced to staminode.Epipetalous.
Gynoecium :Bicarpellary and syncarpous with a superior ovarywhich is bilocular.
Style terminal,simple,and stigma is two lipped.
Nectar disc :cushion like or annular at the base of the ovary.
Fruit : Two valved:loculicidal or septicidal capsule fleshy and indehiscent in Kigelia.
Seeds : Compressed discoid.
Pollination :Showy flowers nectar:-insect pollination.
Seed dispersal :Seeds mostly winged:-Wind dispersal.


Examples.
Spathodia campanulata.Jacaranda mimosaefoliaKigellia pinnataHeterophragmaTabebuiaTecomaPyrostegiaCampsisRadermachera xylocarpa.