Phoradendron Nutt.
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.
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Family
Viscaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - Shrubs, parasitic on trees, mostly brittle at the nodes, with opposite coriaceous flat leaves, sometimes reduced to scales (cataphyls), terete or angled twigs, and monoecious or dioecious axillary spicate bracted small flowers, solitary or several in the axil of each bract. Staminate flowers with a 3-lobed (rarely 2-4-lobed) calyx, bearing a sessile transversely 2-celled anther at the base of each lobe. Pistillate flowers with a similar calyx adnate to the ovoid inferior ovary; style short; stigma obtuse or capitate. Fruit a sessile fleshy berry. Endosperm copious. [Greek, tree-thief, from its parasitic habit.] Over 200 species, all American. Type species: Phoradendron californicum Xutt.