Description:

• Shrubby (rarely minute herbs), monoecious or dioecious, brittle, glabrous, hemiparasitic aerial parasites on dicotyledons (rarely gymnosperms); branching usually dense and intricate, forked or whorled; internodes rounded or compressed, sometimes ribbed and twisted 90º; nodes often swollen, articulated
• Leaves opposite, simple, entire, sometimes reduced to scales; stipules 0
• Inflorescence a typical or modified dichasium subtended by a pair of usually fused bracts (bracteal cup)
• Flowers unisexual, minute (± 2 mm across), solitary or clustered with 3 or 4, free, valvate, often much-reduced perianth segments
• Monoecious plants with central flower of dichasium usually male and lateral ones female, or occasionally with all flowers male or female
• Dioecious plants with male dichasia usually bearing 3(2) flowers; female dichasia with a solitary flower in the bracteal cup
• Male flowers: stamens opposite to and as many as perianth segments, episepalous or free; anthers dehiscing by numerous pores; pollen spherical, spined or smooth; style vestigial or lacking
• Female flowers: ovary inferior, 1-locular; ovules undifferentiated, with 2 embryo sacs originating on a short placental column; style simple; stigma linear or capitate
• Fruit a 1-seeded berry with a viscous layer inside the vascular bundles, white, yellow, orange, or red, smooth or warty, pedicelled or sessile in the bracteal cup; perianth segments occasionally persistent; style usually persistent
• x = 10, 11, 12 (polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• Before the publication of Wiens & Tölken (1979) the family was generally included in the Loranthaceae

Nomenclature:

• Viscaceae
  • Wiens & Tölken: 43 (1979)
  • Polhill & Wiens: 275 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 7, ± 450 species, widely distributed in tropical and north temperate regions
• Southern Africa: Genus 1, species 17

References:

• POLHILL, R. & WIENS, D. 1998. Mistletoes of Africa. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• WIENS, D. & TÖLKEN, H. 1979. Viscaceae. Flora of southern Africa 10,1

Resources:

• Viscaceae genus: Viscum