64 LOEANTEACEM. [ LORANTHUS, 



distinctly produced above the ovary, \ in. long, lioary-tomentose, 

 tube cylindrical ; limb cupular truncate or shortly 5-toothed. Corolla 

 usually glabrous ; tube curved, widened upwards, split on the back, 

 red or orange, rarely pink or white ; lobes 5, linear, reflexed, f in. long,, 

 green or yellowish. Fruit J-^in. long, ovoid-oblong, crowned by the 

 cup-shaped calyx, black when ripe. Albumen white, copious, with 

 five linear teeth at the top surrounding the green embryo, which 

 resembles a small nail J in. long with a flattened head representing 

 the radicle. (Talbot in Trees Bomb., ed. 2, p. 290). 



Abundant in all parts of the area and especially in the forest tracts, where 

 it is very destructive to a great many kinds of trees, especially the 

 mango, the mahua, and nim. It flowers chiefly during the cold season. 

 DISTRIB. : More or less throughout India, ascending to 3,000 ft. in. 

 the W. Himalaya ; also in Ceylon, Burma and Australia. 



In the Government garden at Saharanpur there used to exist a very 

 interesting specimen in which this species of Loranthus played a 

 prominent part as illustrating the occurrence of parasitism on the 

 branches of an epiphyte (Ficus religiosa). This latter, having com- 

 menced life as an epiphyte on the stem of a Wild Date Palm (Phoenix 

 sylvestris), rapidly developed its aerial roots downwards so as ultima- 

 tely to form a continuous casing round the entire trunk of the 

 palm from a height of 20 feet or more. The presence of some 

 kind of lichen growth on the woody branches of the Loranthus 

 would have added a further link to the interesting symbiotic 

 history of this remarkable composite specimen of vegetation. 



2. VISCUM, Linn; Fl. Brit. Ind. v, 223. 



Shrubs, semi-parasitic on trees. Leaves flat and thick, or reduced 

 to small scales or teeth. Flowers small, dioecious or monoecious, 

 fascicled or rarely solitary in the axils or on nodes, rarely ter- 

 minal : bracts usually small ; bracteoles free or connate, rarely 

 obsolete. Perianth-tube of male-flowers short, solid, of the females 

 adnate to ovary ; limb 3-4 lobed, lobes usually deciduous. Stamens 

 3-4; anthers broad, sessile, adnate to the perianth-lobes; cells 

 confluent, opening by many pores. Ovary inferior ; stigma 

 sessile or subsessile, large, pulvinate. Fruit a succulent berry, the 

 mesocarp soft and viscid. Embryo in fleshy albumen, solitary or 2 

 in each seed. Species about 30, in temp, and trop. regions. 



Branches Jeafy, terete . . . . 1. V. monoicum. 



Branches leafless, flattened . . . . 2. V. articulatum. 



