''Tapinanthus bangwensis'' 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 Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

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 the tropics of western

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

Range

It is native to the forest region from

Senegal Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 � ...

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

and

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

Description

It is a woody aerial shrub that is attached to its host plant by haustorium, haustoria. It has a pendulous stem of up to 2 meters long, and the branchlets are abundantly covered with brown lenticels. The leaves are geographically variable in size and thickness. They are reduced in

, but larger southwards. The perianth tube is red at the bottom, becoming pink in the middle, and grey at the lobes. The filaments and style are initially green, but turn purple. Its tricolporate pollen grain is oblate-spheroidal and rather large (40 x 43.5 µm) with its

amb AMB may refer to: * Active magnetic bearing * Advanced Memory Buffer, used in Fully Buffered DIMM memory * Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, one of the armed sections of the Palestinian Fatah movement * Ambergate railway station, abbreviation used in the ...

a truncated triangle, not unlike that of '' T. cordifolius''.

Host species

It parasitizes many plant species. These include ''

Acacia farnesiana ''Vachellia farnesiana'', also known as ''Acacia farnesiana'', and previously ''Mimosa farnesiana'', commonly known as sweet acacia, huisache, or needle bush, is a species of shrub or small tree in the legume family, Fabaceae. Its flowers are use ...

'', '' A. nilotica'', ''

Alchornea cordifolia ''Alchornea cordifolia'' is a shrub or small tree distributed throughout tropical Africa, it can grow up to 8 metres tall. The plant is used in traditional African medicine. Common name is the Christmas bush. Chemical constituents The leaves, ...

'', ''

Cola nitida ''Cola nitida'' is a species of plant belonging to the family Malvaceae. It is a tree native to the rainforests of tropical West Africa. Common names include kola nut, cola, kola and bitter kola. The seeds contain caffeine and are chewed as a s ...

'', ''

Coffea liberica ''Coffea liberica'', commonly known as the Liberian coffee, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae from which coffee is produced. It is native to western and central Africa from Liberia to Uganda and Angola, and has become natu ...

'', '' Crossopteryx'', '' Croton'', '' Machaerium'', ''

Manihot ''Manihot'' is a genus in the diverse milkspurge family, Euphorbiaceae. It was described as a genus in 1754.Miller, Philip. 1754. Gardeners Dictionary...Abridged...fourth edition vol. 2 Species of ''Manihot'' are monoecious . . trees, shrubs a ...

'', ''

Terminalia catappa ''Terminalia catappa'' is a large tropical tree in the leadwood tree family, Combretaceae, native to Asia, Australia, the Pacific, Madagascar and Seychelles. Common names in English include country almond, Indian almond, Malabar almond, sea almon ...

'' and ''

Theobroma ''Theobroma'' is a genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae, that is sometimes classified as a member of Sterculiaceae. It contains roughly 20 species of small understory trees native to the tropical forests of Central and So ...

''.

Uses

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

the leaves are used to treat

guinea worm ''Dracunculus medinensis'', or Guinea worm, is a nematode that causes dracunculiasis, also known as guinea worm disease. The disease is caused by the female which, at up to in length, is among the longest nematodes infecting humans. In contra ...

infection, while in

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

, the leaves are used to treat various disorders including cancer and liver ailments. In

the plant is used with '' Gardenia tricantha'' (Rubiaceae) for the treatment of leprosy.

Flavonoid Flavonoids (or bioflavonoids; from the Latin word ''flavus'', meaning yellow, their color in nature) are a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites found in plants, and thus commonly consumed in the diets of humans. Chemically, flavonoids ...

lectin Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins that are highly specific for sugar groups that are part of other molecules, so cause agglutination of particular cells or precipitation of glycoconjugates and polysaccharides. Lectins have a role in rec ...

polypeptide Peptides (, ) are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. Long chains of amino acids are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty amino acids are called oligopeptides, and include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides. A p ...

triterpene Triterpenes are a class of chemical compounds composed of three terpene units with the molecular formula C30H48; they may also be thought of as consisting of six isoprene units. Animals, plants and fungi all produce triterpenes, including squale ...

s and

polyphenol Polyphenols () are a large family of naturally occurring organic compounds characterized by multiples of phenol units. They are abundant in plants and structurally diverse. Polyphenols include flavonoids, tannic acid, and ellagitannin, some of ...

ic compounds have been reported in the plant. Phlobotannins,

alkaloid Alkaloids are a class of basic, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Some synthetic compounds of similar ...

anthraquinone Anthraquinone, also called anthracenedione or dioxoanthracene, is an aromatic organic compound with formula . Isomers include various quinone derivatives. The term anthraquinone however refers to the isomer, 9,10-anthraquinone (IUPAC: 9,10-dioxo ...

s, besides cardiac and steroidal

glycoside In chemistry, a glycoside is a molecule in which a sugar is bound to another functional group via a glycosidic bond. Glycosides play numerous important roles in living organisms. Many plants store chemicals in the form of inactive glycosides. ...

s have also been reported.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15355061 bangwensis Taxa named by Adolf Engler Flora of Africa