PLANT: Trees, shrubs, or rhizomatous herbs. LEAVES: alternate, from simple, entire and palmately veined to palmately lobed or palmately compound, often with a mucilaginous epidermis; stipules well developed. INFLORESCENCE: panicles, racemes, or cymes, sometimes appearing before the leaves. FLOWERS: perfect, actinomorphic or zygomorphic; sepals and petals 5, distinct; stamens numerous, arranged n 2-5 groups, sometimes borne on a nectariferous disk; ovary superior, carpels 2-5, styles 1 scarcely lobed, the ovules numerous. FRUITS: loculicidal capsules. SEEDS: with oily, proteinaceous, or starchy endosperm. NOTES: 3 genera, 12 spp., chiefly of tropical and subtropical regions. REFERENCES: Hodgson, Wendy. 1994. Bixaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27, 188-189.