(DC.) Danser
Description
Taxillus kaempferi is a stem-hemiparasitic mistletoe ranging from Japan and Taiwan across China to the eastern Himalaya, with GBIF records from Japan, China, Taiwan, Bhutan and India. It parasitises the branches of trees and shrubs, particularly conifers such as Pinus and Tsuga as well as various broad-leaved hosts, in temperate montane forest generally between 1,500 and 2,800 m. The photographed plant grows near Paro in western Bhutan at about 2,400 m in June, representing the species at the western limit of its distribution in the Himalayan conifer belt.
The plant forms a pendent to spreading shrub attached to the host branch by a haustorial union and often by epicortical runners. The young branchlets, leaf undersides and inflorescences are clothed in a dense rusty to reddish stellate or dendritic tomentum, a key generic feature. The leaves are leathery, alternate to subopposite, ovate to elliptic with entire margins. The flowers are borne in short axillary umbels or racemes; each has a tubular, four-merous corolla that is reddish to orange and curved, splitting into recurved lobes at anthesis to expose the stamens, and is pollinated chiefly by birds. The fruit is a one-seeded berry with viscid pulp, dispersed by frugivorous birds that wipe the sticky seed onto new branches.
Taxillus belongs to the Loranthaceae, the showy aerial-parasite family, and is distinguished from related genera by its tomentum, umbellate inflorescence and floral structure. As a hemiparasite it retains chlorophyll while drawing water and minerals from the host. Though it can locally affect host vigour, T. kaempferi is a natural and widespread forest element, ecologically valuable as a nectar and fruit resource, and is not of conservation concern.
Author: (DC.) Danser · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 5 (Loranthaceae), Grierson & Long: Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, Barlow: Loranthaceae of Asia (taxonomic revisions)