Loranthaceae

Loranthaceae
Ligaria cuneifolia
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Santalales
Family: Loranthaceae
Juss.[1]
Genera

See text

Distribution of the Loranthaceae.
Psittacanthus flowering atop a tree

Loranthaceae, commonly known as the showy mistletoes, is a family of flowering plants.[2][3] It consists of about 75 genera and 1,000 species of woody plants, many of them hemiparasites. The three terrestrial species are Nuytsia floribunda (the Western Australian Christmas tree), Atkinsonia ligustrina (from the Blue Mountains of Australia), and Gaiadendron punctatum (from Central/South America.) Loranthaceae are primarily xylem parasites, but their haustoria may sometimes tap the phloem,[4] while Tristerix aphyllus is almost holoparasitic.[5] For a more complete description of the Australian Loranthaceae, see Flora of Australia online Archived 2018-04-01 at the Wayback Machine.,[2] for the Malesian Loranthaceae see Flora of Malesia.

Originally, Loranthaceae contained all mistletoe species, but the mistletoes of Europe and North America (Viscum, Arceuthobium, and Phoradendron) belong to the family Santalaceae. The APG II system 2003 assigns the family to the order Santalales in the clade core eudicots.

  1. ^ Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2009). "An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG III". Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society. 161 (2): 105–121. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.2009.00996.x. hdl:10654/18083.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference FoAO was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Kuijt, Job; Hansen, Bertel (2015). Flowering Plants. Eudicots. Santalales, Balanophorales. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-09296-6. ISBN 978-3-319-09295-9. S2CID 35096693.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Barlow1997 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Stevens was invoked but never defined (see the help page).