Key to Viscaceae

View taxon page for Viscaceae

Jepson Manual glossary definitions can be seen by moving your cursor over words underlined with dots.

1. Stem generally < 20 cm, ± angled at least when young, straw-colored, yellow, yellow-green, olive-green, green, brown, purple; 

leaf 

Organ arising from a stem, generally composed of a stalk (petiole) and a flat, expanded, green, photosynthetic area (blade); distinguished from a leaflet by the presence in its axil of a bud, branch, thorn, or flower; sometimes with lateral, basal appendages (stipules); either simple (toothed, lobed, or dissected but not divided into leaflets) or compound (divided into leaflets).

scale-like, < 1 mm; fruit ± broadly fusiform-spheric, 2-colored (1 color below, 1 above), not white, not pink, not ± red, explosive, 

pedicel 

Stalk of an individual flower in an inflorescence, or the corresponding structure in fruit.

 

recurved 

Gradually curved downward or backward.

; pistillate perianth parts 2; anthers ± 1-chambered; on Abies, Pinus, Pseudotsuga, Tsuga, Picea ..... ARCEUTHOBIUM

1' Stem generally > 20 cm, not angled, green, yellow-green, gray-green, less often ± red; leaf 

blade 

Expanded portion of a leaf, petal, or other structure, generally flat but sometimes rolled, cylindric, wavy, or cupped.

5–70 mm, or leaf scale-like, < 1 mm; fruit ± spheric, 1-colored, white, pink, or ± red, not explosive, pedicel ± straight or 0; pistillate perianth parts generally 3–4; anthers 2–several-chambered; on woody angiosperms or Abies, Calocedrus, Juniperus, Hesperocyparis.

2. Perianth parts generally 3, pistillate persistent; inflorescence few- to many-flowered spikes; flowers ± sunken into axis (by proliferation of axis tissue); fruit ± 3–6 mm; leaf blade 5–47 mm, or leaf scale-like, < 1 mm, glabrous or minutely 

tomentose 

Covered with densely interwoven, generally matted hairs.

; anthers 2-chambered; on especially Abies, Acacia, Adenostoma, Alnus, Arctostaphylos, Calocedrus, Cercidium, Fraxinus, Hesperocyparis, Juglans, Juniperus, (Larrea), Olneya, Platanus, Populus, Prosopis, Quercus, Rhus, Robinia, Salix, Umbellularia, reportedly on Pinus monophylla ..... PHORADENDRON

2' Perianth parts generally 4, pistillate generally deciduous; inflorescence few-flowered 

cymes 

1. In flowering plants excluding Asteraceae and some other groups, a branched inflorescence in which the central or uppermost flower opens before the peripheral or lowermost flowers on any axis. see 2. In Asteraceae and some other groups, a cyme-like inflorescence is one in which the central or uppermost inflorescence units (e.g., heads in Asteraceae, umbels enclosed by involucres in Eriogonum), instead of individual flowers, develop and mature before the peripheral or lowermost inflorescence units on any axis.

; flowers not sunken into axis; fruit 6–10 mm; leaf blade generally 50–80 mm, fleshy, glabrous; anthers several-chambered; on especially Acer, Alnus, Betula, Crataegus, Malus, Populus, Robinia, Salix, Ulmus ..... VISCUM

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