#amyema

Amyema pendula ssp. pendula

18-SEP-2025

One of several mistletoes growing on Cooleenup Island. Some of the she-oaks had multiple species growing on them.

Nouvelle Calédonie, Baie de Prony, 4 avril 2015

In She-oak swamp at Cannington, Perth. The name derives from the Greek for "without" and "to instruct"; because the full description of the genus had not been published when the name was first used, and ‘thread-leaved’. Buloke, or Bull-oak, is Allocasuarina luehmannii, a species of ironwood native to Australia - its wood is possibly the hardest commercially available as timber.

A fairly rare species but found across most of Australia wherever Casuarina grows, one of Australia’s very wide variety of mistletoes and other parasitic plants (the family probably evolved here). The genus is found across Australia and up into Malesia. 

From out at Byford, Perth, where I was examining a remarkably large mistletoe when these butterflies showed up.

The butterfly’s scientific name is derived from an epithet for Artemis, and other figures from Greek myth. The common name for the genus is from a Phoenician princess and queen of ancient Israel. They ARE pretty impressive butterflies. 

Jezebel caterpillars feed on the leaves of mistletoes and sandalwoods, and became quite a pest when sandalwood started being grown commercially here in Western Australia. The caterpillars and the adults do become quite poisonous however, and the bright colours of both might be advertising the fact. 

A common mistletoe in the Riverina - most noteworthy for how closely it mimics the leaves of the host eucalypt.

Eucalypt leaves at the left, parasitic plant leaves on the right.