Dendrophthora

Content

Description

Usually small, glabrous bushes, parasitic on dicotyledonous woody plants; internodes terete or somewhat angled; haustorial attachments at least initially simple, but cortical strands reaching into host tissues to various distances. Leaves simple, often rather succulent, in some species reduced to scales; lowest leafy organs on lateral branches and spikes in median or transverse plane. Vegetative lateral branches often, but not always, with basal cataphylls, but inflorescences less commonly so. Inflorescences axillary (very rarely terminal), in axils of leaf scales or foliage leaves, solitary or in clusters, rarely in compound inflorescences, being a spike with a peduncle of at least one internode and one or more terminal, fertile internodes with flowers produced, as in Phoradendron, in intercalary fashion; flower arrangement various but commonly in 1 or 3 series above each fertile bract. Monoecious or dioecious, in the former case with diverse patterns of sex distribution on spikes and/or individuals. Anthers presumedly 1-locular, dehiscing by a transverse slit. Fruit commonly white, with persistent perianth segments; endosperm copious, bright green, as is the weakly differentiated, dicotylous embryo. (x = 14).

Distribution

Guianas present, Southern America: Bolivia (Bolivia present); Peru (Peru present), southern Mexico present

A neotropical genus of some 120 species, ranging from southern Mexico and much of the Caribbean to Peru and Bolivia; in the Guianas 7 species.

Chromosomes

(x = 14).1

1. 008

Notes

Dendrophthora is very closely allied to the much larger genus Phoradendron (see comments under the latter), and a number of species have been transferred from one to the other. The only character which distinguishes the two at present is the 1-locular vs. 2-locular anther, respectively, a character which, notwithstanding its practical problems, seems to be rather consistently reliable: i.e., it at least separates two large, natural assemblages, even though in some species of Dendrophthora not clearly belonging to the "typical" group the validity of this solitary character needs to be tested.
Dendrophthora and Phoradendron do not overlap ecologically nearly as much as their geography would suggest, Phoradendron remaining at low to middle elevations. D. elliptica and D. warmingii would seem to constitute exceptions to this altitudinal pattern of separation.