Scurrula pulverulenta - Powdery Mistletoe

Powdery Mistletoe is a parasitic shrub 1-1.5 m tall, young branchlets velvet-hairy with white stellate and verticillate hairs, soon mealy and then hairless. Branches are gray, hairless, warty. Leaves are oppositely arranged, carried on 1.5-2 cm long stalks. They are broadly ovate or ovate-oblong, 7-16 x 6-9 cm, thinly leathery, both surfaces whitish velvety when young, hairless when mature, lateral veins 4-6 pairs, base rounded to broadly wedge-shaped, tip bluntly pointed. Flower racemes are solitary or 2- or 3-fascicled, axillary, 8-16-flowered, carried on stalks and rachis 2.5-3.5 cm, white stellate tomentose. Flower-stalks are 5-6 mm. Calyx is pear-shaped, about 3 mm, limb annular. Mature buds are tubular, 3-4 cm, tip ellipsoid. Flowers are cream or yellowish, slightly curved, densely velvety with white hairs, these longer than those on stems and leaves, tip portion slightly inflated, lobes lanceolate, about 1 cm, reflexed. Filaments are 2-3 mm; anthers about 5 mm. Style red; stigma capitate. Berry is pear- or club-shaped, 6-10 x about 5 mm, velvet-hairy. Powdery Mistletoe is found in the Himalayas, from Garhwal to Bhutan, and Burma, and other parts of India, at altitudes of 200-1400 m. Flowering: August-March.