Home
Herbs, monoecious or dioecious, fleshy, parasitic on roots or rhizomes of various hosts. Rhizome usually branched, usually with scales or warts and/or lenticels. Flowering shoots endogenously arising from rhizome; scapes with or without leaves, unbranched. Leaves scaly, opposite or alternate and distichous or spiraled, sometimes whorled, rarely contorted or clustered, without stomata. Inflorescences unisexual or androgynous, terminal, spadix or spadixlike structure covered with minute branches; branches frequently subtended by variously modified bract. Flowers unisexual, pedicellate or sessile. Male flowers: larger than female flowers, 3(or 4 or more)-merous. Perianth apically lobed or dentate, sometimes absent; lobes valvate. Stamens 1 or 2 when perianth absent or usually as numerous as and opposite to perianth lobes when perianth present; filaments free or connate into a synandrium; anthers free or connate, 2-loculed or more, dehiscent by slits. Female flowers: congested on branches or basally on spadicles and/or shoot axis. Perianth absent or reduced and 2-to irregularly lobed, adnate to ovary. Ovary inferior. styles 1 or 2; stigmas slightly capitellate. Fruit a 1-seeded achene.
Herbaceous, fleshy root-parasites, without chlorophyll or roots, dioecious or monoecious; stem arising endogenously or exogenously from tuber, leafless or with scale leaves. Inflorescence spadix-like, often appearing cone-like or fungus-like; flowers unisexual; male flowers conspicuous, giving the cone-like appearance; female flowers minute and very numerous, giving the fungus-like appearance. Male flowers sessile or pedicellate, usually bracteate, 2–6-merous, rarely more; tepals in 1 whorl, free; stamens opposite tepals, fused into a synandrium. Female flowers (in Balanophora ) subtended by club-shaped bracts (spadicles); perianth bilobed and fused to ovary, or absent; styles 1 or 2; ovary with 1 or 2, rarely 3, carpels, inferior or superior. Fruit minute, nut-like or drupe-like. Seeds with endosperm; embryo minute. See also Du Puy (1993: 256).
Stamens 1–2 in the achlamydeous flowers, in those with a perianth often equal in number to, and opposite the lobes; filaments free or connate; anthers 2–4-celled or with many cells, free or connate, opening by pores or slits
Ovary 1–3-celled, adnate to the perianth when present; styles 1–2, terminal or rarely the stigma sessile and discoid; ovule solitary in each cell, mostly pendulous, nude or with a single integument
Herbaceous parasites on roots of woody plants, without chlorophyll, usually brightly coloured, fleshy, arising from underground tubers attached to host plant, monoecious, dioecious or polygamous
Flowers unisexual, very rarely hermaphrodite, densely crowded into unisexual or androgynous inflorescences; male flowers without or with a valvate 3–8-lobed perianth
Tubers cylindrical or subspherical, irregularly lobed or emitting branched cylindrical rhizomes
Male flowers: perianth segments (tepals) 3–9; stamens 2–12, free or united into a synandrium
Fleshy herbs parasitic on roots, annual or perennial, destitute of chlorophyll and stomata
Female flowers: perianth absent or much reduced, 3–several-lobed and adnate to ovary
Flowers borne in involucrate heads or in dense fleshy inflorescences
Inflorescences simple or branched, with or without bracts
Fruit indehiscent, aggregated into syncarpia or separate
Seeds with abundant endosperm and very small embryo
Fruit small, nut-like, 1-celled, 1-seeded
Ovary inferior, 1–3-locular, ovules 1–3
Rhizomes with or without scaly leaves
Style 1, long, filiform, or absent
