Parasitic Plants: Basic Information

By Agrihortico CPL

There are always some exceptions found in the nature. For example, there are a group of plants called 'parasitic plants' which are unable to perform photosynthesis, a characteristic function of majority members of the plant kingdom. These parasitic plants depend on other living plants for their food and nutritional requirements. Parasitic plants that depend totally on other plants for their food and nutritional requirements are known as total parasites or holoparasites or obligately parasitic plants. Parasitic plants that depend partially on other plants for their food and nutritional requirements are called partial parasites or hemiparasites.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Agrihortico
• Release date: Mar 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393532675

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Parasitic Plants

Basic Information

AGRIHORTICO

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Table of Contents

Parasitic Plants

Parasitic Plants: An Introduction

Arceuthobium or Dwarf Mistletoe

Balanophora

Cassytha or Love Vine

Cistanche

Cuscuta or Dodder Climber

Loranthus

Nuytsia or Australian Christmas Tree

Orobanche or Broomrape

Pilostyles or Thurber’s Stemsucker

Rafflesia

Santalum or Sandalwood Tree

Striga or Witch Weed

Viscum or Common Mistletoe

Autotrophic and Heterotrophic Plants

Broadly speaking, a plant is a multicellular photosynthetic eukaryotic life-form that grows in permanent site absorbing water and nutrients from its growing media through a well-developed root system for its growth and development. All plants are members of the Plant Kingdom (Kingdom Plantae). There are different types of plants: small and big, seed-bearing and non-seed bearing, flowering and non-flowering, aquatic and terrestrial, epiphytic and lithophytic, parasitic and saprophytic, and so on.

It is believed that there are millions of plant species in existence on this planet Earth. However, approximately 4 lakhs species of plants are known to science till date. Out of these plants, about 95% are vascular, flowering and seed- bearing plants, those plants that we see around us every day. Rest 5% comprises of plants that are rare and are less known to the world.

Classification of Plants: Plants may be grouped into different categories based on their uses, functional characteristics, economic importance etc. One major classification that is based on the nutritional aspects of the plants is ‘autotrophic’ and ‘heterotrophic.’

Greek word ‘auto’ means ‘self’, ‘hetero’ means ‘different’ and ‘trophic’ means ‘relating to nutrition’. Autotrophic plants are those plants that are capable of self synthesising their own

food by using light energy. Almost all green plants with chlorophyll pigments are considered as autotrophic plants.

Heterotrophic plants are different from autotrophs in the