If you happen to come across plants of the Balanophoraceae family in a corner of a forest, you might easily mistake them for fungi growing around tree roots. Their mushroom-like structures are ...

A weird-looking parasitic plant has discarded all its photosynthesis machinery – and nevertheless has found a way to thrive. A new analysis of seven Balanophora species has found that these crazy ...

Some parasitic plants steal genetic material from their host plants and use the stolen genes to more effectively siphon off the host's nutrients. A new study led by researchers at Penn State and ...

Using the model Orobanchaceae parasitic plant Phtheirospermum japonicum, scientists from Nagoya University and other research institutes from Japan have discerned the molecular mechanisms underlying ...

Amos Alakonya, Ravi Kumar, Daniel Koenig, Seisuke Kimura, Brad Townsley, Steven Runo, Helena M. Garces, Julie Kang, Andrea Yanez, Rakefet David-Schwartz, Jesse ...

This article was originally published by Knowable Magazine. Mistletoe is more than just a Yuletide kissing attraction; it plays a hugely important role in ecosystems. It is a parasitic plant—it takes ...

Balanophora shed one third of its genes as it evolved into an uber-streamlined parasitic plant, according to new research by a team led by scientists at BGI Research, and including botanists from the ...

Some parasitic plants steal genetic material from their host plants and use the stolen genes to more effectively siphon off the host's nutrients. A new study reveals that the parasitic plant dodder ...