''
Agelanthus microphyllus'' is a species of
hemiparasitic
A parasitic plant is a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirements from another living plant. They make up about 1% of angiosperms and are found in almost every biome. All parasitic plants develop a specialized organ called the ...
plant in the family
Loranthaceae
Loranthaceae, commonly known as the showy mistletoes, is a family of flowering plants. It consists of about 75 genera and 1,000 species of woody plants, many of them hemiparasites. The three terrestrial species are ''Nuytsia floribunda'' (the W ...
, which is native to
Ethiopia,
Kenya and
Tanzania.
Description
A description of the plant is given in Govaerts ''et al.'',
based on
Polhill &
Wiens (1999).
Habitat/ecology
''A. microphyllus'' grows on
Acacia
''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...
species in deciduous bushland, and is an extremely scattered and uncommon species.
Threats
The main threat is habitat conversion to agriculture, in particular, to maize plantations.
References
Flora of Tanzania
Flora of Kenya
Flora of Ethiopia
microphyllus
{{Santalales-stub