This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Being a parasite isn’t all free drinks and ...

Plants may not seem like they live the most exciting lives, but two new papers published this week point to different types ...

A dodder plant begins its life looking like a tapeworm. The tiny plant, which will never grow leaves or roots, elongates in a spindly spiral. Round and round it swirls, searching for a host plant.

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A macro photograph of a cluster of mushroom-like plants on the forest floor against a mossy backdrop. These are Balanophora ...

Parasites are the ultimate moochers, earning a living by stealing hard-earned nutrients from their hosts. Now, a new study in plants suggests that parasites sometimes give something back: foreign ...

Parasitic plants do not haphazardly flail about looking for a host but sense volatile chemicals produced by other plants and identify potential hosts by their emissions, according to a team of Penn ...

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 ...

Some parasitic plants can ‘steal’ genetic information from their hosts through horizontal gene transfer, which they then use to make themselves a better parasite. Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A weird-looking parasitic plant has discarded all its photosynthesis machinery – and nevertheless has found a way to thrive. A new ...

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Spain has found neonicotinoids represent an unexplored harmful exposure route to beneficial insects via honeydew. In their paper published ...

In our region there are a few fully parasitic plants, totally dependent on other plants for carbon, water, and nutrients. Some of them are not common, but we sometimes see them along the trails. They ...

A recent study suggests that the large mammals may seek out parts of bananas and papayas when they’re suffering from gut ...