Pandorea (Endl.) Spach

Scientific Description

Family Bignoniaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs, or lianas. Self supporting, or climbing; when climbing stem twiners. Leaves opposite; petiolate; compound; pinnate; imparipinnate. Leaflets 3–9. Leaves without stipules; without a persistent basal meristem. Stem anatomy. Nodes unilacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring, or anomalous.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Entomophilous, or ornithophilous, or cheiropterophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in panicles (thyrses), or in racemes. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose, or racemose. Inflorescences terminal and axillary. Flowers bracteate; somewhat irregular, or very irregular. The floral asymmetry involving the perianth and involving the androecium. Flowers more or less 5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Hypogynous disk present. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; entire, or lobed. Calyx lobes markedly shorter than the tube. Calyx cupuliform, or campanulate; regular. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; gamopetalous; imbricate; bilabiate. Androecium 5. Androecial members adnate (to the corolla tube); markedly unequal; free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium including staminodes. Staminodes 1 (the posterior, adaxial member). Stamens 4; didynamous; reduced in number relative to the adjacent perianth; oppositisepalous; all alternating with the corolla members. Anthers connivent, or separate from one another; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; bilocular (cells divergent). Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular; 2 locular. Locules secondarily divided by ‘false septa’, or without ‘false septa’. Gynoecium median; stylate. Styles 1; attenuate from the ovary; apical. Stigmas 1; 2 - lobed; wet type; papillate; Group III type. Placentation axile. Ovules 6–50 per locule (‘many’); ascending; orthotropous, or hemianatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; dehiscent; a capsule (stipitate, terete or compressed, 2-valved, usually coriaceous, without a false septum). Capsules loculicidal. Fruit numerous-seeded. Seeds non-endospermic; winged (wing thin). Cotyledons 2 (enlarged, foliaceous). Embryo straight.

Special features. The upper lip of the corolla incorporating 2 members, the lower 3; (posterior, adaxial) lip of the corolla bilobed. Lower (abaxial) lip of the corolla 3 lobed.

Geography, cytology, number of species. Native of Australia. Not endemic to Australia. Australian states and territories: Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory, and Tasmania. Northern Botanical Province and Eremaean Botanical Province.

Additional characters Fruit rostrate.