Dendrophthoe pentandra(L.) Miq.

WFO wfo-0000641278 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 4 separate observations

Dendrophthoe pentandra, photographed by Cheongweei Gan
fig. a Cheongweei Gan, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-18 / obs. 144276434
Dendrophthoe pentandra, photographed by Cheongweei Gan
fig. b Cheongweei Gan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 124410411
Dendrophthoe pentandra, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. c Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 30918845
Dendrophthoe pentandra, photographed by Cheongweei Gan
fig. d Cheongweei Gan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 138300600

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
40115
Filed as
Dendrophthoe pentandra (L.) Miq.
Det. by
W. Nanakorn 1991-01-01
Collected
W. Nanakorn 1991-02-21
Origin
TH
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. We link to the digitised sheet rather than rehosting it, because the holding institutions do not serve their images to third parties reliably and we are not going to show you a picture we cannot actually deliver. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 16 botanical countries

Regions where Dendrophthoe pentandra is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam China South-CentralChina SoutheastAssamBangladeshBorneoCambodiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMyanmarNepalPhilippinesSumateraThailandVietnam
Native distribution of Dendrophthoe pentandra, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Philippines PHI
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 159 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 11.8 °C 23.9 °C 24.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.6 °C 29.4 °C 34.4 °C
Annual rainfall 1,417 mm 2,406 mm 2,623 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 38 mm 494 mm 520 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 159 research-grade observations of Dendrophthoe pentandra that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 15 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Dendrophthoe farinosa Mart.
  • Dendrophthoe leucobotrya Miq.
  • Dendrophthoe venosa Mart.
  • Elytranthe farinosa G.Don
  • Elytranthe rigida (Wall. ex DC.) G.Don
  • Loranthus farinosus Desr.
  • Loranthus finlaysonianus Wall.
  • Loranthus flavus Blume
  • Loranthus pentandrus L.
  • Loranthus rigidus Wall. ex DC.
  • Loranthus venosus Blume
  • Loranthus zimmermannii Warb.
  • Meiena axillaris Raf.
  • Scurrula pentandra (L.) G.Don
  • Scurrula venosa G.Don

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.