''Peraxilla tetrapetala'', commonly known as red mistletoe, is a

parasitic plant A parasitic plant is a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirements from another living plant. They make up about 1% of angiosperms and are found in almost every biome. All Parasite, parasitic plants develop a specialized organ ...

in the family

Loranthaceae Loranthaceae, commonly known as the showy mistletoes, is a family of flowering plants. It consists of about 75 genera and 1,000 species of woody plants, many of them hemiparasites. The three terrestrial species are '' Nuytsia floribunda'' (the ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to New Zealand and found on both the

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

s. The

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

names for the plant are pikirangi, pirirangi and roeroe. It is a shrub up to one metre tall with

glabrous Glabrousness () is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes, or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of a plant or animal, or be due to loss because of a physical condition, ...

leaves. The flowers are 4–5 mm long, bright red to orange in colour which split open to the base. Red mistletoe mainly parasitises ''

Quintinia ''Quintinia'' is a genus of about 25 evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Philippines, New Guinea, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainla ...

'' and ''

Nothofagus ''Nothofagus'', also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere, found across southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Guin ...

'' species. Its principal host is the black/mountain beech (''

Nothofagus solandri ''Nothofagus solandri'', commonly known as black beech, is species of tree endemic to New Zealand. Black beech occurs on both the North and the South Island at low elevations up to the mountains. It is also known as ''Nothofagus solandri'' var. ...

'' complex). However, north of latitude 38°S this species utilises tawheowheo (''

Quintinia serrata ''Quintinia serrata'', commonly known as tawheowheo, is a species of evergreen tree in the genus ''Quintinia ''Quintinia'' is a genus of about 25 evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Philippines, New Guinea, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Va ...

''), and in the far north has been found on pōhutukawa (''

Metrosideros excelsa ''Metrosideros'' is a genus of approximately 60 trees, shrubs, and vines in the family Myrtaceae, mostly found in the Pacific region. Most of the tree forms are small, but some are exceptionally large, the New Zealand species in particular. The ...

''), pūriri (''

Vitex lucens ''Vitex lucens'', commonly known as pūriri, is an evergreen tree endemic to New Zealand. History Pūriri was first collected (by Europeans) at Tolaga Bay by Joseph Banks, Banks and Daniel Solander, Solander during Cook's first visit in 1769. ...

'') and tōwai ('' Weinmannia sylvicola''), and hence, is the most widely distributed beech mistletoe. ''P. tetrapetala'' is hermaphroditic, self-compatible, and is both bird-pollinated and bird-dispersed, yet has an explosive bud-opening mechanism. It is thought that birds are more important for seed dispersal than for pollination. The caterpillar of the

moth '' Zelleria maculata'' feeds on the inside flower buds of ''P. tetrapetala'' and as a result can affect the production of seeds of this plant.

Conservation

The plant is highly palatable to the introduced

common brushtail possum The common brushtail possum (''Trichosurus vulpecula'', from the Ancient Greek, Greek for "furry tailed" and the Latin for "little fox", previously in the genus ''Phalangista'') is a nocturnal, semiarboreal marsupial of the family Phalangeridae ...

resulting in a threat to the plant population. The possum browsing effect appears more important in the North Island than in the South Island, where the major cause of foliage browse has been attributed to insect attack. A continued major threat is habitat loss. Red mistletoe is listed as in "Gradual Decline" in the

New Zealand Threat Classification System The New Zealand Threat Classification System is used by the Department of Conservation to assess conservation priorities of species in New Zealand. The system was developed because the IUCN Red List, a similar conservation status system, had s ...

and relies on conservation measures to halt the decline.

References

External links

Department of Conservation
– mistletoe page
University of Canterbury
– mistletoe photographs
Citizen science observations of ''Peraxilla tetrapetala''.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q7166968 Loranthaceae Flora of New Zealand Endemic flora of New Zealand