3528.000 Bauhinia L. - Orchid trees

Shrubs or small trees, sometimes scrambling or climbing. Tendrils 0, but branches sometimes coiling in a tendril-like manner. Leaves alternate, simple, conspicuously 2-lobed. Flowers usually large and showy, bisexual, in short racemes or solitary. Calyx spathaceous. Petals 5, free. Fertile stamens 1-10, sometimes accompanied by staminodes. Stigma capitate or small. Pods oblong-linear, woody, dehiscent. Seeds flat.

Derivation of name: Named, because of the 2-lobed leaves, after two Swiss botanists, Jean and Caspar Bauhin.

Worldwide: 300 species, pantropical.

Zimbabwe: 12 cultivated taxa.