LORANTHACEiE. 



375 



are wanting, and the stamens reduced to 3, 2, or 1), Ovary 1- 

 eelled, with a simple style or stigma. Fruit a 1-seeded berry. 



A considerable tropical family, with but very few representatives in the 

 more temperate regions, and no exotic species are at present in culti- 

 vation. The affinities of the Order are perhaps greater with the Sandal- 

 wood family among Monochlamyds than with the Calyciflores, with 

 vrhich they are here associated ; but they could not well be removed 

 thither without doing violence to the general principles of the Can- 

 dollean arrangement. 



I. MISTLETOE. YISCUM. 



Flowers dioecious. Calyx without any prominent border. Anthers 

 in the males sessile in the centre of the petals, opening in several pores. 

 Stigma in the females sessile on the ovary. 



The genus, taken in its most extended sense, included a con- 

 siderable number of species, ranging over nearly the whole area of the 

 family, but is now limited to a much smaller number, chiefly Asiatic, 

 besides the common European one. 



1. Common Mistletoe. Viscum album, Linn. (Fig. 451.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 1470.) 



Stems becoming woody when old, with 

 repeatedly forked, succulent branches, 

 forming dense tufts of a yellowish green, 

 attaining 1 to 2 feet in diameter, and 

 attached by a thickened base to the 

 branches of trees. Leaves entire, vary- 

 ing from narrow-oblong to nearly ob- 

 ovate, thick and fleshy, and always ob- 

 tuse. Flowers almost sessile in the 

 forks of the branches ; the males 3 to 5 

 together, in a somewhat cup-shaped, 

 fleshy bract, with 4 short, thick, trian- 

 gular petals ; the females solitary, or 

 rarely 2 or 3 together in a cup-shaped 

 bract. The petals very minute. Berry 

 white, semi-transparent, enclosing a sin- 

 gle seed, surrounded by a very glutinous 

 pulp. 



Fig. 451. 



