Bixaceae

Trees or shrubs containing a reddish juice. Leaves alternate, simple, palmativeined. Stipules small, deciduous. Inflorescence consisting of terminal panicles. Flowers hermaphrodite, actinomorphic, large. Pedicels with 5 glands below the calyx. Sepals 5, free, imbricate, deciduous. Petals 5, free, imbricate. Stamens numerous, inserted on an annular, hypogynous disk; filaments free or slightly connate at the base; anthers 2-celled, horseshoe-shaped, passing over the top of the filaments, with the arms united at the back, opening at the apex by two short slits which at length become an apical pore. Ovary superior, 2-carpelled, 1-celled or falsely 2-celled by placental intrusion; style one, terminal; stigma shortly 2-lobed. Ovules numerous on two parietal placentas, anatropous. Fruit a capsule, one-celled, bi-valved and densely covered with spines; valves thick, with the placentas in the middle-line. Seeds numerous; testa fleshy. Endosperm copious. Embryo large, straight. Two species in one genus in tropical America.