Eremolepidaceae

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Eremolepidaceae

Description

Semiparasitic mistletoes on branches of shrubs and trees, some with epicortical roots at base of plant, primary haustorium often becoming large and saddle-like. Leaves alternate, simple, short-petiolate to nearly sessile, expanded or scale-like and peltate. Dioecious or monoecious. Inflorescences spikes or catkin-like racemes; flowers pedicellate or sessile, apetalous in male Antidaphne only, where with central glandular disk and 2-4 stamens. Female and bisexual inflorescences spicate; flowers with 2 or 3 minute, caducous perianth segments. Fruit a small, 1-seeded berry; seed with abundant, whitish endosperm.

Distribution

Greater Antilles present, Guianas present, Northern America: Mexico Southwest (Oaxaca present), northern Argentina present, southern Chile present
A strictly American family ranging from Oaxaca in Mexico to northern Argentina and southern Chile, as well as the Greater Antilles, with 3 small genera totalling perhaps 12 species; in the Guianas 1 species.

Notes

In addition to the genus here included, it is conceivable that Eubrachion gracile Kuijt occurs in the mid-western portion of Guyana, at elevations between 1400 and 2300 m. It is a slender, erect, squamate, monoecious mistletoe with small, cone-like inflorescences. It appears to be a Venezuelan endemic known mostly from the Auyan-tepui area about 100 km W of the Guyana border.