Arceuthobium.] LXV. LORANTHACEjE. 395 



the next joint. Flowers dioicous, sessile in fascicles of 3-5, half immersed 

 in concave bracts. Fruit short-stalked, ovoid, mucronate, T ^- in. long, 

 fleshy, deep green or blackish, white when dry ; seed in the lower half, 

 cylindrical, thrown out with great force when the fruit is ripe, often 

 2-3 ft. off, and being covered with a viscous pulp, attaches itself readily 

 to any branch upon which it falls. 



This remarkable plant grows on Juniperus excelsa, in Lahoul on the Upper 

 Chenab, at 9000-11,000 ft., where it was discovered by the Rev. H. A. Jseschke 

 of the Tibet Moravian Mission. It pushes long creeping roots between bark 

 and wood, and thus, as well as by seed gradually overspreads the plant on which 

 it has once taken root, often killing the branch or the entire tree. Male and 

 female plants are found on the same foster-tree. The fruit ripens in winter, 

 fourteen months after flowering. The same species grows on Juniperus Oxy- 

 cedri and on J. communis on the Caucasus, in Armenia and Kurdistan, Dal- 

 matia, the French Alps (Basses Alpes near Sisteron), Algeria, and (on Pinus 

 ponderosa and other species) in America on the Rocky Mountains, in California 

 and Mexico. 



3. LORANTHUS, Linn. 



Shrubs with opposite, rarely alternate leaves, often with stellate hairs. 

 Flowers usually large, showy, usually hermaphrodite. Calyx adnate, 

 limb entire or toothed. Petals 3-6, epigynous, free or equally or unequally 

 cohering below. Stamens subequal or alternately shorter, epipetalous 

 (rarely free) ; anthers variously affixed, elliptical to linear, occasionally 

 multilocellate, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary inferior ; style elongate, 

 stigma capitate. Fruit more or less fleshy, with a single seed. 



Petals free ; pedicels opposite, in the axils of deciduous bracts . 1. L. ligustrinus. 

 Petals connate into a tube ; pedicels generally alternate. 

 Flowers tetramerous ; pedicel and ovary pubescent 

 Branchlets and under side of leaves stellate-tomentose. 

 Ovary turbinate ; berry club-shaped. 



Leaves ovate, 5-7 in. ; petiole 1 in. long . . . 2. L. pulverulentus. 

 Leaves broad-ovate from sub-cordate base, 2-3 in. ; peti- 

 ole i in. loDg 3. L. cordifolius. 



Ovary cylindric ; berry cylindric or ovoid . . . 4. L. vestitus. 

 Branchlets and leaves glabrous ; flowers red and green in 



lateral fasciculate umbels or corymbs . . . . 5. L. umbellifer. 

 Flowers pentamerous ; pedicel and ovary glabrous . . 6. L. longiflorvus. 



1. L. ligustrinus, Wall, in Koxb. Fl. Ind., ed. Carey, ii. 219. 



A parasitic shrub or a small (apparently) terrestrial tree, probably par- 

 asitic on roots. Branches grey, young shoots and inflorescence with slight 

 ferruginous pubescence. Leaves opposite, glabrous, coriaceous, the upper 

 sometimes alternate, ovate-lanceolate, narrowed into a short petiole, 1-3 

 in. long. Flowers J in. long, pale-pink outside, deep-red inside ; pedicels 

 opposite in the axils of lanceolate deciduous bracts, in axillary, often 

 trichotomous, panicles or racemes, which are shorter than the subtending 

 leaf; small persistent ciliate bracteoles at the base of calyx. Corolla 

 of 4 distinct linear petals, the upper half spreading or reflexed, the 



