What is meant by parasitic plants?
Name their different types with
examples of each.
Answers
A parasitic plant is a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirement from another living plant. They make up about 1% of angiosperms and are in almost every biome in the world.
Parasitic plants are characterized as follows:
1a. Obligate parasite – a parasite that cannot complete its life cycle without a host.
1b. Facultative parasite – a parasite that can complete its life cycle independent of a host.
2a. Stem parasite – a parasite that attaches to the host stem.
2b. Root parasite – a parasite that attaches to the host root.
3a. Hemiparasite – a plant parasitic under natural conditions, but photosynthetic to some degree. Hemiparasites may just obtain water and mineral nutrients from the host plant; many obtain at least part of their organic nutrients from the host as well.
3b. Holoparasite - a parasitic plant that derives all of its fixed carbon from the host plant. Commonly lacking chlorophyll, holoparasites are often colors other than green.
For hemiparasites, one from each of the three sets of terms can be applied to the same species, e.g.
Nuytsia floribunda (Western Australian Christmas tree) is an obligate root hemiparasite.
Rhinanthus (e.g. Yellow rattle) is a facultative root hemiparasite.
Mistletoe is an obligate stem hemiparasite.
Holoparasites are always obligate so only two terms are needed, e.g.
Dodder is a stem holoparasite.
Hydnora spp. are root holoparasites.
Plants usually considered holoparasites include broomrape, dodder, Rafflesia, and the Hydnoraceae. Plants usually considered hemiparasites include Castilleja, mistletoe, Western Australian Christmas tree, and yellow rattle.
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Answer:
Parasitic plants are those plants who obtain their food requirement from any other living organism.
These are of two types :
1. Holoparasites or Total parasites
(get water and mineral and organic food from their host. Cuscuta-Total stem parasite, Rafflesia -Total root parasite )
2. Hemiparasite or Partial parasites
(get a part of their nourishment from host e.g.water and mineral salts . Viscum-partial stem parasite , Santlum-is partial root parasite.)