Mainly tropical and subtropical, with a few genera most diverse in temperate regions.
Floral characters
usually unisexual, radial to bilateral. Sepals usually 4 or 5, distinct or sometimes basally connate. Petals usually 4 or 5, sometimes lacking, distinct, often clawed, usually with +/- basal appendages on adaxial surface, imbricate. Stames usually 8 or fewer, filaments distinct, usually pubescent or papillose. Nektar disk present, usually extrastaminal.
Leaf characters
Leaves alternate or opposite, pinnately or palmately compound, trifoliolate, or unifoliolate, leaflets serrate or entire, with pinnate or palmate venation.
Stipules
present or absent
Fruit characters
usually a loculicidal, septicidal, or septifragal capsule, arilloid berry, or schizokarp that splits into samara-like or sometimes drupe-like segments, rarely a 1-seeded berry or drupe; seeds often with an aril-like coat.
Glands
absent
Hairs
present or absent
Latex
present
Uses
Euphoria (longan), Litchi (lychee), and Nephelium (rambutan)
Chemical characters
usually with triterpenoid saponins in secretory cells, with a diverse array of cyclopropane amino acids.
Distribution maps
(online von http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/ . Dort zitiert wie unter jedem Diagramm vermerkt):
Sapindaceae
map: from Herzog 1936; Meusel et al. 1978; George 1985
