100 LORANTHACEAE. 



4-parted, in the pistillate tubular-ventricose, 4-cleft with 

 connivent lobes. Style slender or none; stigma spatu- 

 late, recurved, densely tufted. Achene ovoid, smooth 

 and shining, enclosed in the dry brownish nerved calyx. 



1. P. debilis Forst. Very slender, usually diffusely branching 

 from the base, 10-25 cm. high, somewhat hispid; leaves 5-10 mm. 

 long or more, broadly ovate, obtuse, rounded at the base or abruptly 

 cuneate; petioles slender, about equaling the leaves; achene 1 mm. 

 long. 



Growing in moist shady places, especially in the chaparral belt. 

 Santa Monica Mountains; Verdugo Hills; Santa Ana Mountains. 



Family 23. LORANTHACEAE. Mistletoe Family. 



Evergreen shrubs or herbs, ours parasitic on shrubs or 

 trees and absorbing food from their sap through special- 

 ized roots (haustoria). Stems dichotomously branched, 

 swollen at the joints and bearing opposite thick coriace- 

 ous entire exstipulate leaves, foliaceous or reduced to 

 connate scales. Flowers dioecious, regular, clustered or 

 solitary, small and greenish. Petals none. Calyx-tube 

 adnate to the ovary, 2-5-lobed. Stamens equaling the 

 calyx-lobes and inserted upon them; anthers 2-celled or 

 confluently 1-celled. Ovary inferior, 1-celled, 1-ovuled; 

 style simple or none; stigma 1. Fruit a berry; seed 

 solitary with glutinous testa and copious endosperm; 

 embryo straight, terete or angled. 



Leaves scale-like; anthers 1-celled; pollen spinu- 



lose. 1- Razoumofskya 



Leaves foliaceous; anthers 2-celled; pollen 



smooth. 2. Phoradendron. 



1. RAZOUMOFSKYA Hoffm. 



Plants yellow or greenish-brown with fragile jointed 

 angled stems. Leaves reduced to opposite connate 

 scales. Flowers solitary or several from the same axil. 

 Staminate flowers mostly 3-parted, compressed. An- 

 thers sessile on the lobes, circular, 1-celled, dehiscent at 

 the base by a circular slit; pollen grains spinulose. 

 Pistillate flowers ovate, compressed, 2-toothed, subsessile, 

 at length exserted on reflexed pedicels. Berry fleshy, 



