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BlGNONIACEAE. 



Bignonia. Cross Vine. 

 (Family Bignoniaceae). 



Rather soft-wooded climbers. 

 Stems subterete or somewhat 

 fluted, rather slender: pith pale, 

 spongy and finally excavated. Buds 

 moderate, solitary, sessile, oblong, 

 with about 3 pairs of exposed 

 scales. Leaf-scars opposite, some- 

 what elevated, depressed shield- 

 shaped, with 1 C-shaped bundle- 

 trace: or the more or less ever- 

 green leaves of 2 lance-cordate 

 leaflets, not disarticulating and 

 ending in coiling tendrils some- 

 times thickened at tip: stipule- 

 scars lacking, the leaf-bases con- 

 nected by transverse ridges. 



The cross-vine is partly ever- 

 green where it is native or suc- 

 cessfully grown. Its common name 

 refers to the intrusion of four 

 large rays into its wood, one of 

 the many abnormalities that are seen in lianas, as high- 

 climbing stems are called in the tropics. A comprehensive 

 account of such stems is contained in Schenck's Beitrage zur 

 Biologie und Anatomie der Lianen, published in 1893. 

 Glabrous except about the nodes. B. capreolata. 



