499
edits
Changes
no edit summary
{{Inc|
Bixaceae (from the genus Bixa, a name of South American origin). Bixa Family. Fig. 40. Trees or shrubs: leaves alternate, simple or compound: flowers unisexual or bisexual, regular; senate 4-5, imbricated; petals 4—5, large and colored, imbricated and twisted in the bud; stamens numerous; anthers opening by slits, or rarely by pores (Bixa), hypogynous; carpels 1 to several, united; ovary 1-celled, with 1 to several parietal placenta;, or falsely 3-celled; seeds many, with endosperm: fruit fleshy or dry, indehiscent or valvular, in Bixa large and bristly-prickly all over.
All the 4 genera and 19 species (excluding the Flacourtiaceae and other small families often here included) are tropical, from Mexico to Brazil and in Africa, Madagascar and Australia. Bixa is now widely distributed through the tropics. The Bixaceae are related to the Violaceae and Cistaceae, as well as to the Tiliaceae. The numerous stamens, compound but 1-celled ovary with many placentae are all important distinguishing characters.
Bixa Orellana furnishes the coloring matter known as “anatto," extracted from the pulp around the seeds, which is much used to give butter a rich yellow color and is also used in dyeing silks. The Caribbeans formerly tatooed themselves with this dye in order, it is said, to prevent mosquito-bites. The wood is very soft and serves only for tinder; the roots are aromatic and have been used to color and flavor soups. Maximilianea Gossypium furnishes a substitute for gum tragacanth in farther India.
Bixa Orellana is in cultivation in the West Indies, where it is grown for the fruit. Several other genera in the American trade, which were formerly included in the Bixaceae, are now placed by Warburg in the Flacourtiaceae.
{{SCH}}
}}
{{Taxobox
{{Taxobox
| color = lightgreen
| color = lightgreen