PLANT: Trees, shrubs, or woody vines. LEAVES: simple or more commonly compound; terminal leaflet often a tendril; stipules absent. INFLORESCENCE: racemes, panicles or cymes. FLOWERS: showy, perfect, 5-merous; sepals united, the calyx campanulate or 2-lipped; corolla sympetalous, zygomorphic; stamens 4 (2 in Catalpa), didynamous, epipetalous, commonly arched under the upper corolla lip, the anthers of 2 diverging cells; 1 staminode usually present; pistil 2-carpelled, the ovary superior on a nectar disk, usually 2 loculed, the style long with 2 flattened stigmas. FRUITS: capsules. SEEDS: usually flattened and winged. NOTES: 120 genera, 650 spp., chiefly of tropical and subtropical regions. Many cultivated ornamentals as Catalpa and Jacaranda. REFERENCES: Mason, Charles T., Jr. 1999. Bignoniaceae. Ariz.-Nev. Acad. Sci. 32(1).
