Helixanthera parasitica - Red-Spike Mistletoe

Red-Spike Mistletoe is a hairless shrub 1-1.5 m tall, growing on trees. Flowers are borne in solitary or paired racemes in leaf-axils, sometimes at leafless node, 40-60-flowered, 5-10 cm, dull brown or gray. Bracts are subovate or ovate-triangular 1-1.5 mm. Flowers are red, pink, or yellowish, 5-merous, petals 6-8 mm, reflexed from above basal keels. Filaments are 1-2.5 mm; anthers 1-1.5 mm. Style cylindric, 5-angled, constricted in middle, 3-6 mm; stigma headlike. Flower-stalk is 1-2 mm, sepal-cup ellipsoid, 1.5-2 mm, limb annular, about 0.5 mm, entire or 5-finely toothed. Mature bud with basal 1/3-1/2 abruptly expanded into 5 prominent semicircular keels, distal portion club-shaped. Branches are elongated. Leaves are opposite or nearly so, leaf-stalk 5-15 mm; leaf blade ovate to ovate-lanceshaped, 5-12 x 3-4.5 cm, papery to thinly leathery, lateral veins prominent, base broadly wedge-shaped to rounded, tip pointed to tapering. Berry is red, ellipsoid, about 6 x 4 mm. Red-Spike Mistletoe is found in forests in plains or mountain slopes, at altitudes of 100-1800 m, in the Himalayas, from Nepal to NE India, China and SE Asia. Flowering: January-July.