Viscum ovalifolium
Content
Description
Plant slender to robust, erect, to 1.5 m high.
Leaves mostly normally developed; lamina narrowly elliptic to obovate, sometimes falcate when narrow, attenuate at the base to an obscure petiole 2-5 mm long, often undulate at the margin, rounded to acute and shortly mucronate at the apex, curvinerved, usually with 3 veins visible on both sides, 25-120 by 10-35 mm.
Inflorescence axillary, sometimes produced on short lateral shoots lacking normally developing leaves and then appearing spicate, a pedunculate or sessile cymule of 3 flowers subtended by a cupule c. 1 mm long, usually with many subsidiary cymules developing around the first one, with the middle flower female and the lateral flowers male; peduncle 0-5 mm long.
Fruit globose or slightly ellipsoid, usually attenuate at the base, sometimes on a stipe to 3 mm long, distinctly tuberculate before maturity, yellow, orange or red.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical, From Burma eastwards to Hong Kong and southwards to northern Queensland present
From Burma eastwards to Hong Kong and southwards to northern Queensland; Malesia: widespread throughout the region.
Notes
A polymorphic species, notably variable in the degree of flattening of the internodes, development of a stipe below the fruit, and length of the pedicel. This makes the clear distinction of Viscum wrayi difficult (see there). The occasional development of seemingly spicate inflorescences on leafless shoots gives a superficial resemblance to Ginalloa, but fruit characters clearly show the identity.
Both diploid (n = 11) and tetraploid (n = 22) chromosome races are known in V. ovalifolium , and some of the polymorphy may be attributable to this differentiation.