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Orange Deccan Mistletoe
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Orange Deccan Mistletoe
P Native Photo: Shaista Ahmad
Common name: Orange Deccan Mistletoe
Botanical name: Dendrophthoe gamblei    Family: Loranthaceae (Mistletoe family)

Orange Deccan Mistletoe is a newly described (year 2020) parasitic shrub up to 2 m tall, named for James Sykes Gamble (1847-1925) as a scientific forester of the first caliber, an educationist, and a great botanist of British India. It can be distinguished by its linear, curved blade, narrowed to wedge-shaped at base, blunt to nearly pointed at tip, 8.0-18 x 0.4-1.0 cm, lateral nerves faint. Flowers are borne in leaf-axils, in raceme of 2 to 10 flowers, bract rounded. Flowers are usually 4-merous, rarely 5-merous, alternate, weakly club-shaped, and pointed at the tip. Flower-tube is 1.0-3.0 cm long; flower-lobes 0.4-1.4 cm long, slightly curved, reflexed. Stamens are 4-5; anther linear, 0.4-0.5 cm long, pointed or blunt at tip, equal to or slightly longer than the free part of the filament. Filaments are 0.5-0.7 cm long. Ovary is 1-celled, 2-3 mm long; style 3.5-3.8 cm long, slender; stigma capitate. Fruits are berries, ovate to ovate-oblong, 1.2 cm long, greenish-yellow turning red or pinkish when ripe. Orange Deccan Mistletoe is found in Peninsular India. Flowering: September-December.

Identification credit: J.M. Garg Photographed in Devarayana Durga, Karnataka.

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