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Common name:    Bignonias or Trumpetvines         

Etymology:   The name originated with Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, who named it for his benefactor, Jean-Paul Bignon, in 1694, in his influential Eléments de botanique ou méthode pour connaître les plantes

General: 

Nearly all of the Bignoniaceae are woody plants, but a few are subwoody, either as vines or subshrubs. A few more are herbaceous plants of high-elevation montane habitats, in three exclusively herbaceous genera: Tourrettia, Argylia, and Incarvillea. The family includes many lianas, climbing by tendrils, by twining, or rarely, by aerial roots. The largest tribe in the family, called Bignonieae, consists mostly of lianas and is noted for its unique wood anatomy.

Bignoniaceae are most noted for ornamentals, such as Jacaranda, Tabebuia and Spathodea, grown for their conspicuous, tubular flowers. A great many species are known in cultivation.

Monophyletic groups:

1. Jacarandeae

2. Tourrettieae

3. Tecomeae

4. Delostoma

5. Bignonieae

6. Oroxyleae

7. Coleeae

8. "Paleotropical clade"

9. incertae sedis: Astianthus

Flowers:                  

• Flowers are solitary or in a raceme or a helicoid or dichasial cyme

• Inflorescences bear persistent or deciduous bracts or bractlets

• The flowers are hypogynous, zygomorphic, bisexual, and usually conspicuous

• The calyx and corolla are distinct. The calyx is synsepalous, with five sepals

• The corolla is sympetalous, with five petals, often bilabiate

• Corolla lobes are imbricate (overlapping) in bud, or rarely valvate, and usually much shorter than the corolla tube

• Stamens are inserted on the corolla tube, alternating with corolla lobes

• The four stamens are didynamous (pairs of unequal length), members of each pair often connivent (touching & unfused), the adaxial stamen is usually staminodial or absent; rarely with five fertile stamens or with two fertile and three staminodial (sterile) stamens

• The stigma is bilobed, and usually sensitive (close when touched, possibly to avoid pollen loss); a style is present

• The ovary is superior, usually surrounded by a nectary disk, composed of two carpels, bilocular and with a septum, except unilocular in Tourrettia and quadrilocular in Eccremocarpus. Placentation is axile, except parietal in Tourrettia

• Ovules are numerous

Fruit:                         

• The fruit is usually a bivalved capsule, often with a replum (thin partition)

• Dehiscence is septicidal (divided into components) or loculicidal (splitting lengthwise into two)

• The three exceptions are the genera Kigelia, Crescentia and its close relatives, and Colea and its close relatives

• In these, the fruit is indehiscent, not a capsule, and the seeds are not winged

• The fruit is a berry in Colea.

• Seeds are usually flat and winged. Aril is absent. Endosperm usually absent, and sometimes sparse

• Pollination is either entomophilous (via insects), ornithophilous (via birds), or cheiropterophilous (via bats)

Leaves:         

•   The leaves are petiolate

• Leaf arrangement usually is opposite, or rarely alternate or in whorls

• Leaves are usually compound, bifoliate, trifoliate, pinnate, or palmate, or rarely simple

• Stipules are absent, but persistent

• Enlarged axillary bud scales (pseudostipules) are often present

• Domatia occur in some genera

Habit:        

•  Are mostly trees or lianas, sometimes shrubs, and rarely subshrubs or herbs

Habitat:                     

•  The family has a nearly cosmopolitan distribution

• Mostly tropical, with a few species native to the temperate zones

• Its greatest diversity is in northern South America

Species:                     

• World:            810-860 S,    80-85 G

• Australia:      S,    G

Additional notes:         

• The family has been covered in some major floristic projects, such as Flora of China, Flora Malesiana, and Flora Neotropica. It has not yet been covered in some others, such as Flora of Australia, and Flora of North America.

• Lianas of the tribe Bignonieae have a unique vascular structure, in which phloem arms extend downward into the xylem because certain segments of the cambium cease the production of xylem at an early stage of development. The number of these arms is four or a multiple thereof, up to 32. When four, the phloem arms appear as a cross, hence, the common name "cross vine". The phloem in the arms has wider sieve tubes and less parenchyma than the ordinary phloem.

• A yellow, skin-irritating naphthoquinone, is often found in the wood. 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bignoniaceae 

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