Bixa L.

Shrubs or small trees with mucilaginous canals of reddish sap. Leaves simple, entire, palmately nerved. Flowers in terminal corymbs or panicles, often thyrsoid; pedieell thickened upwards. Sepals 4 - 5, free, imbricate, with 2 basal glands on outside of each sepal; all sepals caducous soon after anthesis, leaving 5 basal glands. Petals 4 - 7. Stamens inserted on hypogynous annular disk; filaments long, frec, connate at base; anthers 2-loculed, dehiscing by short slit about the middle, seemingly apical. Ovary 1- or falsely 2-loculed; ovules many, on 2 opposite parietal placentae. Capsule loculicidal compressed, 2-valved from apex downwards, mostly soft prickly; valves persistent; endocarp membranous, separating from valves; seeds many, obovoid, impressed at apex, narrowed at base on enlarged funicle, covered by red testa; endosperm not oily; embryo straight.

Tropical America, West Indies and widely cultivated in tropics; 3 - 4 species, one in India.

List of Lower Taxa