JSP Page
Shrubs, usually glabrous, rarely with malpighian hairs in juvenile parts. Leaves opposite,
alternate or subopposite, petiolate or sessile, elliptic, ovate or falcate. Pseudoracemes axillary,
centrifugal, 3 - 20-flowered, flower buds spathulate; pedicels short, bearing a single round bract
below the ovary. Flowers ebracteolate, slightly zygomorphic, 5-merous, mostly glabrous.
Calyculus-tube entire, truncate. Corolla-tube long, ventricose, curved, splitting on one side;
lobes 5, unilaterally reflexed. Stamens 5, erect or recurved; filaments subterete; anthers oblong,
isothecate or anisothecate, elevatilobate without sterile apex. Ovary oblong, bearing a
conspicuous entire calyx-rim; style tetragonous; stigma capitate. Fruits pseudocarps, ellipsoid
to ellipsoid-ovoid, with apical collar, smooth, glabrous. Endosperm linear-elliptic, horned,
mamillate.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1a. Leaves both opposite and alternate
2
2a. Leaves undulate along margins; lateral nerves faint; racemes 2 – 8 cm long, 10 – 25- flowered
1.
Dendrophthoe falcata
b. Leaves entire along margins; lateral nerves prominent; racemes 0.7 – 2 cm long, 3 – 12-
flowered
4.
Dendrophthoe pentandra
3a. Branching pseudo-dichotomous; leaves sessile or subsessile; flowers in peduncled umbellate
cymes, 2.5 - 3 cm long; anthers isothecate with rounded sterile apex; endosperm hornless,
mamillate
2.
Dendrophthoe memecylifolia
b. Branching lateral; leaves petiolate; flowers solitary or in very short peduncled cymes, 2 - 2.2
cm long; anthers anisothecate without sterile apex; endosperm with five distal incurved horns,
not mamillate
3.
Dendrophthoe neelgherrensis
