The parasitic vine Cuscuta campestris grows by latching onto the stems and leaves of plants and inserting organs called haustorium into the host plant tissues to draw nutrients. The haustorium is ...

Hemiparasites obtain nutrients and inorganic salts from host plants through haustoria, a habit that has evolved independently at least 12 times in angiosperms. Cuscuta represents one of the 12 ...

Have you seen that orange thread-like stuff draped over the top of plants in a salt marsh? It’s a parasitic annual plant called dodder, Cuscuta species. Dodder is capable of photosynthesis, but it ...

Photograph of a seedling of the parasitic plant Cuscuta pentagona attaches to a tomato plant. A study of the plant, by Dr. Justin Runyon of Pennsylvania State University and colleagues, was titled ...

But the extent of the shuffling of RNAs from host to parasite has not been fully appreciated. In a study published today (August 14) in Science, Westwood’s team shows that thousands of different mRNAs ...

Plastid genomes in parasitic plants reveal a striking departure from the conserved architecture found in autotrophic lineages. As plants shift to partial or complete heterotrophy, selective pressures ...

Researchers have discovered the mechanism that drives the parasitic vine Cuscuta campestris to insert organs into plants after making contact with the hosts. The parasitic vine Cuscuta campestris ...