• Family : LORANTHACEAE
  (Mistletoe Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : BANDA FAMILY
• Family (as per The APG System III) : LORANTHACEAE
• Basionym : Dendrophthoe elastica Desr.
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Unresolved name
• Vernacular name : Mavu Ithill (Malayalam)
• Habit : Parasite
• Habitat : Evergreen forests
• Comments / notes : Often on hills, abundant on shola trees. Lesser in plains and coasts
• Flower, Fruit : April-December
• Collector(s) Name : Arun Singh, Navendu Page, Raja K. Swamy & K. Sankara Rao
• Collection Date : 24/03/2016
• Collection Nos : HJCB-0640; KFP 694, KFP 3701
• Collection Locality : Way to Sholakkadu, Kolli Hills, Namakkal district (TN)
• Distribution :
  • Karnataka : Shivamogga district, Hassan district ,Udupi district, Belagavi district, Chikkamagaluru district, Uttara Kannada district, Dakshina Kannada district
  • Kerala : All districts of Kerala
  • Tamil Nadu : Kanchipuram (Changalpattu-CGP) district, Vellore district, Namakkal district, Tiruchirapalli district
• Native : India
• Endemism : Peninsular India
• Conservation Status : Not Evaluated (NE)
• Literature : Saldanha, C.J. (1996). Flora of Karnataka vol. 2. Oxford and IBH Publishing Co, New Delhi; Gopalakrishna Bhat, 2003 – Flora of Udupi District; Matthew, K.M., The Flora of Tamil Nadu Carnatic, Vol.3 (2). Diocesan Press, Madras. 1983; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI.
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Helicanthes elastica. Downloaded on 2 April 2025.

Botanical Description

Herbarium Specimen(s)

Field Image(s)