Phthirusa caribaea Engl.

• Title

  Phthirusa caribaea Engl.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton

• Scientific Name

  Phthirusa caribaea Engl.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Phthirusa caribaea Hicaquillo Small Mistletoe Family Loranthaceae Mistletoe Family Dendropemon caribaeus Krug & Urban; Urban, Botanische Jahrbücher Phthirusa caribaea Engler, in Engler & Prantl, Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien, Nachträg 2-4: 135. 1897. Plants of the large Mistletoe Family are nearly all true parasites, growing on trees or shrubs, and absorbing food from their sap through specialized roots technically termed haustoria. They are woody, green plants, often forming large tufts, which are sometimes conspicuous on trees with meagre foliage, or from which the leaves have fallen. The origin of parasitism is wholly obscure; among flowering plants it is restricted to a few families, the Mistletoe Family being much the largest, the number of species being estimated at about 500, widely distributed in both the Old World and the New, most abundant in tropical regions. Some of them live on only one kind of tree, others are not so particular; some have large, broad, or narrow leaves, in others the leaves are reduced to mere scales, and the plants then thus appear to be leafless, in the Porto Rican Flora, 17 species have been identified, some living in very dry districts, some in moist, some even in wet mountain forests. The small flowers are variously clustered, or those of some kinds solitary. Phthirusa (Greek, destroying) comprises about 45 species, distributed in the West Indies and in tropical South America. They are mostly rather small parasites, with round or 4-angled branches, and opposite, broad, flat, fleshy or leathery leaves. The small, or minute, but perfect flowers are borne in slender clusters and subtended by small, united, cup-like bractlets; the calyx is without teeth or sometimes slightly toothed; there are usually 6, spreading, separate petals; the stamens have fleshy filaments inserted below the middle of the petals; the ovary has a ring-like disk; the style is stout. The fruit is a small, fleshy berry. Phthirusa caribaea is frequent on small trees and shrubs in the dry southern and southwestern parts of Porto Rico, and inhabits Vieques, the Virgin Islands, and the Lesser Antilles from Antigua to Barbados. Its stems are tufted, spreading or drooping, 0.4 to 0.8 meters long, the young branches 4-angled. The short-stalked leaves are from 2 to 4 centimeters long, oval, or broadest above the middle, rounded, notched, or rarely pointed. The slender flower-clusters are from 1 to 6 centimeters long. The berries are bluish-black, 7 or 8 millimeters long, 4 or 5 millimeters thick above the middle. Our illustration was first published in "Addisonia", plate 548, May, 1932.