Malpighiaceae

Woody plants, trees, shrubs or undershrubs, often twining, with bi-branched strigae and glands on leaves and other sterile parts. Inflorescence consisting of racemes. Flowers zygomorphic. Sepals 5, sometimes all, but mostly 4 with one or two glands without. Petals 5, free, clawed and mostly with a lacerate margin. Stamens 10, obdiplostemonous, not seldom staminodial or wanting; filaments united into a tube at the base. Ovary (2—)3(—5)-locular; styles as many as the locules. Ovules pendulous, solitary in each locule. Fruit a schizocarp, mostly winged, rarely a nut, a berry or a drupe. Seeds without endosperm. About 800 species in more than 60 genera in the tropics.