Alpine flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Chapter 17: Loranthaceæ Mistletoe Family

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About This Book

A concise field manual that surveys the alpine and subalpine plants encountered along the Canadian Rockies and the Selkirks accessible by the trans-mountain railway, emphasizing distinct regional assemblages and plant adaptations to differences in moisture and exposure. Species are arranged by botanical families with general keys to families and genera; treatments include ferns, conifers, shrubs and the majority of herbaceous flowering plants while excluding grasses, sedges, and willows. Descriptions are accompanied by plates, watercolour illustrations and photographs, and the text relates local taxa to comparable mountain floras while noting characteristic species, habitats and elevational ranges.

Loranthaceæ
Mistletoe Family

Parasitic herbs growing on woody plants and absorbing their food from the host plant through specialised roots; leaves opposite, frequently reduced to scales; flowers diœcious or monœcious, regular; in terminal or axillary clusters.

Razoumofskya americana (Nutt.) Kuntze. Dwarf Mistletoe.

Greenish-yellow or brownish, smooth, fleshy; stems rather slender, numerous, and tufted, forked or branched into 4-angled jointed branches. Leaves reduced to opposite scales at the joints. Flowers very small, the staminate and pistillate on separate plants; staminate plants 2—4 inches long, with the flowers on terminal peduncle-like joints; pistillate plants much smaller and darker coloured; berries ovate, purplish-brown, ⅙ of an inch long.

Throughout the Rockies, parasitic on Pinus Murrayana; locally abundant, appearing in midsummer.