''Dendrophthoe glabrescens'', commonly known as orange mistletoe, is a

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 of the

mistletoe Mistletoe is the common name for obligate hemiparasitic plants in the order Santalales. They are attached to their host tree or shrub by a structure called the haustorium, through which they extract water and nutrients from the host plant. ...

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 ...

, found in eastern and northern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It flowers from October to January. The flowers are tubular, with a green base, but where the tube splits open, it displays orange and bright red.

Taxonomy

It was first described in 1925 as ''Loranthus vitellinus'' var. ''glabrescens'' by

William Blakely William Faris Blakely (November 1875 – 1 September 1941) was an Australian botanist and collector. From 1913 to 1940 he worked in the National Herbarium of New South Wales, working with Joseph Maiden on ''Eucalyptus'', Maiden named a ''red g ...

, and in 1962 was transferred to the genus, ''

Dendrophthoe ''Dendrophthoe'' is a genus of hemiparasitic shrubs found in Asia and Australia known as mistletoes. The genus was described by German naturalist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius in 1830. Species in this genus have a variety of reported uses in ...

'', and raised to species status by Bryan Barlow.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15381583 glabrescens Flora of Western Australia Flora of New South Wales Flora of Queensland Parasitic plants Plants described in 1925 Taxa named by William Blakely