LXIV. BIGNONIACEÆ.
Trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and opposite or rarely alternate simple (in the arborescent genera of the United States) leaves, without stipules. Flowers perfect, large and showy; calyx closed in the bud, bilabiately splitting in anthesis; corolla hypogynous, 2-lipped, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens 2 or 4, inserted on the corolla, introrse; anthers 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; staminodia 1 or 3; ovary sessile, 1 or 2-celled, gradually narrowed into a slender simple style 2-lobed and stigmatic at apex; ovules numerous, horizontal, anatropous; raphe ventral; micropyle superior. Fruit a linear woody loculicidally 2-valved capsule, or a berry. Seeds without albumen; embryo filling the cavity of the seed.
The Bignonia family with about one hundred genera, many of them of scandent plants, is widely distributed in the tropics and most abundant in the New World, with a few genera extending into temperate regions. Of the five genera of the United States three are arborescent. Many of the species are important timber-trees.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Fruit a linear woody capsule; ovary 2-celled; leaves thin, deciduous. Stamens 4; staminodium 1; leaves linear, often alternate or scattered.1. [Chilopsis.] Stamens 2; staminodia 3; leaves oblong-ovate, mostly opposite.2. [Catalpa.] Fruit a berry; stamens 4; staminodium 1; ovary 1-celled; leaves coriaceous, persistent.3. [Enallagma.]