Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

LORANTHUS LONGIFLOROUS DESR: A WIDE HOST RANGE PARASITE HARBORED ON A FEW NEW HOSTS ON SRI DEVARAJ URS ACADEMY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND RESEARCH CAMPUS AND PHYTOCHEMICAL COMPARISON OF HOST AND PARASITE

Kiranmayee Pamidimukkala and Mary Shobha Rani Inala

Abstract

The range of parasitic plants displays a significant variation in specificity for the hosts. The multiple factors that influence host specificity are pollination, birds, richness of host plants and their compatibility and the environmental conditions. Our research work describes about the distribution of the parasite, Loratnhus longiflorus on diversified hosts observed in a Medical college campus. The entire campus is about 100 acres and the field observation was made to find out the spread of Loranthus. The recognized host plants are actually well distributed in Kolar district of Karnataka. The selected campus is having nearly 50 different indigenous and exotic varieties of tree species. After careful scrutiny, the parasitic plants identified on Albizia amara, Albizia saman, Azadirachta indica, Ixora singaporensis, Millingtonia hortensis, Lagerstroemia flosreginae, Muntingia calabura, Pongamia pinnata, Punica granatum, Peltophorum pterocarpum, Tabebuia rosea, Tabebuia argentea and Tabernaemontana divaricata. Among those 13, 07 plants have been identified as new hosts and 04 plants belong to Fabaceae. The pattern of haustoria was primary, epicortical and cortical on the identified hosts. Among the studied phytochemicals, only gums and mucilages; resins and saponins are present in both T. divaricata and Loranthus. Glycosides are the small estexisting phytochemicals in all the studied hosts and parasite. Majorly occupied phytochemicals were phenolics, flavonoids, gums and mucilage, resins and saponins.