Loranthus (redirected from loranthuses)

Loranthus 

a genus of low green hemiparasitic shrubs of the family Loranthaceae. The plants parasitize trees. The leaves are opposite or alternate, leathery, and entire; there is pronounced pinnate venation. The flowers, which are marked by a cup-shaped widening of the axis, are generally bisexual and inconspicuous. The inflorescence is paniculate or spicate. The perianth consists of four to six yellowish green bracts that are adnate to the filaments of the stamens. The fruit is berry-shaped, ovate, or globose. There are approximately 500 species (according to other data, as many as 600), distributed primarily in the tropics of the eastern hemisphere. The USSR has one species, L. europaeus, which parasitizes oak. This brownish green forked-branching deciduous shrub has blunt oblong-elliptic leaves.