THE TRUMPET CREEPER FAMILY 



BIGNONIACEiE Persoon 



IGNONIACEi^ comprise nearly loo genera, including about 1500 

 species of trees, shrubs or woody climbers and a few herbs. They 

 are of wide distribution, especially in the tropics, being most abun- 

 dant in America, but very few occur in the temperate zone ; 6 genera 

 with 8 species occur in our area, of which 5 are arborescent. This family includes 

 some important timber trees; the fruit of the Calabash tree is of great importance 

 in tropical countries, being made into basins, pails, cups, and other utensils. 

 Many are exceedingly ornamental and are much used in the gardens of warm cli- 

 mates and in the conservatories of colder countries. In temperate regions a few 

 woody climbers are grown, such as the well-known Trumpet Creeper, Campsis 

 radicans (Linnaeus) Seemann, native from Pennsylvania southward. 



The Bignoniaceae have opposite, rarely alternate, simple or pinnately com- 

 pound leaves, the leaf-stalk often provided with tendrils, but there are no stipules. 

 The flowers are mostly spicate or racemose, rarely solitary, large and showy, per- 

 fect and more or less irregular. The calyx has usually 2 more or less united lips ; 

 the corolla is irregular, deciduous, 5-lobed or 2-lipped, the lobes imbricated; the 

 tube varies from tubular to bell-shaped ; stamens 2 or 4, perfect, with i to 3 sterile 

 filaments or staminodes' often in pairs, inserted on the corolla-tube and alternate 

 with its lobes; filaments thread-hke and joined to the corolla-tube, mostly included; 

 anthers 2-celled, the cells commonly diverging; the pistil consists of 2 carpels; 

 ovary i-celled with 2 parietal placentas or 2-celled by false partition walls; style 

 terminal, usually 2-lobed at the apex and stigmatic on the inner faces of the 

 lobes. The fruit is a leathery or woody capsule, often flattened, elongated and 

 2-valved. The numerous seeds are usually winged at both ends; the endosperm is 

 wanting; cotyledons usually notched at the apex. 



Leaves deciduous; ovary 2-celled; fruit linear, dehiscent. 



Leaves mostly opposite, broad; perfect stamens 2. i. Catalpa. 



Leaves alternate or scattered, narrow; perfect stamens 4. 2. Chilopsis. 



Leaves evergreen, alternate or crowded; ovary i -celled; fruit ovoid, indehiscent; 



perfect stamens 4. 3. Cresceniia. 



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