Small or minute fleshy glabrous plants, parasitic on the branches of coniferous trees, their branches 4-angled, and leaves reduced to opposite connate scales. Flowers dioecious, not bracted, solitary or several together in the axils of the scales. Staminate flowers with a 2-5-parted calyx and usually an equal number of stamens, the 1-celled anthers sessile on the segments. Pistillate flowers with the ovary adnate to the tube of the calyx, the calyx-limb 2-parted. Disk present in both kinds of flowers. Berry fleshy, ovoid, more or less flattened, borne on a short somewhat recurved peduncle. Embryo enclosed in the copious endosperm. [In honor of Alexis Razoumofski, Russian botanist.]

About 10 species. Besides the following, 7 or 8 others occur in western North America and Mexico, 2 in Europe and Asia. Type species: Razoumofskya caucdsica Hoffm.

1. Razoumofskya Pusilla (Peck) Kuntze. Small Mistletoe

Fig. 1564

Arceuthobium pusillum Peck, Rep. N. Y. State Mus. 25: 69.

1873. Arceuthobium minntum Engelm. Bull. Torr. Club 2: 43.

Without description. 1871. Razoumofskya pusilla Kuntze, Rev. Gen. Pl. 587. 1891.

Plant inconspicuous, stems 2"-10" long, nearly terete when fresh, somewhat 4-angled when dry, simple or sparingly branched, greenish-brown, slender. Scales suborbicular, appressed, obtuse, about 1/2" wide, connate at the base; flowers strictly dioecious (the staminate and pistillate plants sometimes on different trees), solitary in most of the axils, longer than the scales; berry ovoid-oblong, acute, about 1" long, nodding on a slightly exserted peduncle; seeds enclosed in a viscid mucus.

On twigs of spruces and tamarack, Newfoundland to Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan. June.