Oncocalyx

Aerial, hemiparasitic shrubs of relatively small size, usually less than 0.5 m high, glabrous. Stems buff-coloured with usually dense lenticels and often greatly swollen, floriferous nodes; wood a dull pink (in living plants); haustorium expanding laterally and proximally along cambium from point of infection and enlarging with age and penetrating into xylem and erupting through cortex near shoots. Leaves mostly alternate, blades usually elliptic. Inflorescence a 2-6-flowered umbel with short peduncles and pedicels less than 2 mm long, solitary in axils or fascicled on older swollen nodes. Flowers 5-merous, gamopetalous, bilaterally symmetrical by the presence of a unilateral, V-shaped split +/- as long as erect lobes. Calyx cupular to tubular. Corolla with conspicuous basal swelling, mostly yellow sometimes bands of red, white, pink, and pale green in various combinations. Filaments coiled or curved at anthesis, with 2 minute (0.5 mm long) lateral appendages or teeth present 1-2 mm below anthers. Style filiform; stigma capitate. Berry red, usually ovoid, occasionally verrucose. x = 9.