Taking a look inside these botanical rebels offers new information to better understand them.
Tag - Orobanchaceae
Luiza Teixeira-Costa
Identifying evolutionary patterns in complex plant groups with DNA barcoding
The sequencing of short standardised pieces of DNA (DNA barcodes) is commonly used to tell species apart. This approach is thought to be of limited value in complex plant groups where species have evolved recently. In a...
William Salter
Host specificity is a driver of speciation in parasitic plants
Broomrapes (Orobanche spp.) are a cosmopolitan genus of root holoparasites–non-photosynthetic angiosperms that obtain nutrients and energy by connecting to the roots of other plants. Using a phylogenetic study, based on...
botanyone
Nutrient requirements differ in two sympatric hemiparasitic species
The reasons for marked differences in growth performance of hemiparasites when attached to different hosts are not fully understood. Li et al. study the responses to inorganic solutes in the absence of a host plant of...
AM fungi and P acquisition by hemiparasitic Pedicularis
A study of Pedicularis rex and P. tricolor finds that AM colonization is low, and less than 1 % of total plant P is taken up from the soil via the AM fungus.
Fungal suppression of haustoria in a hemiparasite
Most parasitic plants do not form mycorrhizal associations, so direct interactions between them and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi have rarely been studied. Using a facultative root hemiparasite, Pedicularis...
Genetic control of germination in Orobanche
The tiny seeds of the obligate root parasitic plants of the Orobanchaceae do not germinate unless they detect chemical signals from a suitable host plant. After crossing the two closely related species Orobanche cernua...
Host-plant stimulation of germination in parasitic Phelipanche
The tiny seeds of the obligate root parasitic plants of the Orobanchaceae do not germinate unless they detect chemical signals from a host plant. Joel et al. study seed ultrastructure and find that mucilage swelling in...
Co-flowering species and pollination interactions
The presence of co-flowering species can alter pollinator foraging behaviour and positively or negatively affect reproductive success of individual species. Liao et al. investigate interactions between Pedicularis...
