It is pretty well known that plants differ from animals due to their ability to make their own food using just carbon dioxide, water and sunlight through a process called photosynthesis. But some plants are a bit lazy and figured “why should I make my own food like a sucker when I can just steal some from my neighbor?” Thus, the strategy of plant parasitism was born.

The secret to being a plant parasite is to produce modified roots, called haustoria. Rather than collecting water and minerals from the earth like normal roots, haustoria pierce the roots or stems of other plants and tap into their vascular systems. The haustoria suck up the sap from the parasitized plants, obtaining water, minerals and the product of photosynthesis: sugar. The parasitized plants are weakened but not usually killed, unless stressed for other reasons.

The evolutionary journey to parasitism was not always completed; while some species became full parasites (=holo-parasites), such as dodders (Cuscuta spp.) and dwarf-mistletoes (Arceuthobium spp.), others are only partial parasites (=hemi-parasites). Hemi-parasites still produce green leaves and are capable of photosynthesis, unlike the holo-parasites, which no longer perform any photosynthesis at all. Through their haustoria, hemi-parasites obtain mainly water and minerals from the parasitized plants, which means they can grow in habitats where they might normally be at a competitive disadvantage in terms of their ability to obtain enough soil resources.

The Sandalwood family contains the most common parasites in the province: the holo-parasite dwarf-mistletoe, and the hemi-parasites pale comandra (Comandra umbellata) and false toadflax (Geocaulon lividum). Pale comandra typically grows in dry prairies, parasitizing a wide variety of common plants like asters and roses, while false toadflax is found in our northern forests living off of woody plants like bearberry (Arctostaphylos spp.) or asters.

All plants in the Broom-rape family including paintbrushes (Castilleja spp.), owl’s-clover (Orthocarpus luteus), louseworts (Pedicularis spp.), eyebrights (Euphrasia spp.), cow-wheat (Melampyrum lineare), and false foxgloves (Agalinus spp.) are hemi-parasites. Many of the broom-rapes have colourful, fragrant, two-lipped flowers that attract and support many pollinators, typically bees and butterflies. In Manitoba, 15 of the plants in this family are considered rare (ranked as critically imperilled, imperilled or vulnerable by the Manitoba Conservation Data Centre). Gattinger’s agalinis (Agalinis gattingeri) and rough agalinis (A. aspera) are both extremely rare and legally protected under the national Species-at-risk Act, 2002 and the provincial Endangered Species and Ecosystems Act, 2018. The rare and unusual-looking broomrapes (Orobanche spp.) are holo-parasites on wild asters, possessing no leaves, just coppery-coloured stems and large white, yellow or purplish flowers. Many of these rare parasitic plants grow in our endangered native prairies, dependent on the wild plants that grow there, which are themselves increasingly rare due to exotic species encroachment, habitat loss and climate change. Clearly, being a parasite is not as carefree as it sounds.

Now that you know they exist, be on the lookout for these, sometimes lovely, sometimes ugly, groups of free-loading plants.