MALPIGHIACEAE family is home to some very beautiful shrubs, trees and vines native to the tropics and subtropics. It is a large family with about 73 genera and over 1300 species. Some characteristics that can help identify its members are listed as follows:
🌷 Leaves are simple, opposite or arranged in whorls and have stipules. They frequently have paired glands on the petiole or base of the blade
🌷 Flowers are bisexual, usually radially symmetrical, with pentamerous perianth of well differentiated 5 sepals and petals. The petals are generally yellow or pink, claw shaped with their margins ciliate, toothed, or fringed. The sepals have basal glands that secrete sugar rich nectar.
🌷Stamens are arranged in 2 whorls and carpels are 3 in number.
🌷These flowers are either produced singly, or in racemes, panicles or cymes.
🌷The fruit is a drupe, nut, or samara (with variable shape of wings) usually indehiscent
Reference
Plants of Singapore