Learn how an underground plant is redefining what plants need to survive.

A weird-looking parasitic plant has discarded all its photosynthesis machinery – and nevertheless has found a way to thrive.

Parasitic plants are notorious agricultural pests that drain nutrients from crops and cause economic losses of more than USD ...

In the damp understory of forests in Taiwan, mainland Japan, and Okinawa, a plant called Balanophora can fool you at first ...

“My long-standing aim is to rethink what it truly means to be a plant,” Kenji Suetsugu, a botanist at Kobe University in Japan, said in a statement. “For many years I have been fascinated by plants ...

New species of the plants are still being discovered, and their parasitic biology is being probed for potential cancer ...

Balanophora is a plant that abandoned photosynthesis long ago and now lives entirely as a parasite on tree roots, hidden in ...

Parasitic plants cause losses of over a billion dollars in crop losses each year, yet they rarely attack their own roots.

The study reveals how Balanophora plants function despite abandoning photosynthesis and, in some species, sexual reproduction. Their plastid genomes shrank dramatically in a shared ancestor, yet the ...

This rare plant looks like a mushroom is actually a parasitic flowering species. Scientists reveal how Balanophora survives ...

With its distinctive white berries, it is one of the symbols of the festive period in the United Kingdom and the United ...