Flowering Plant of Parasites and Its Classification
1. Although most of the plant disease are caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes. There are few seed plants, which are parasitic on living plants.
2. In many cases the damage caused by these parasites is slight on attacked host plants are little importance, but there are some examples where those flowering plants attack valuable crops and trees causing considerable losses.
3. Some of these attack on root while others parasitize stem, some are devoid of chlorophyll and entirely depended on their hosts for food supply while other have chlorophyll and obtain only mineral constituents of food from the host.
4. More than 2500 species of higher plants are known to live parasitically on other plants.
Classification of Flowering Plant Parasites:
i) Complete Parasite (Holoparasites ):
a. Root Orobanchea (Broom rape)
b. Stem Cuscuta (Dodder Amarvel)
ii) Partial Parasites (Semi Parasites)
a. Root Striga ( Sandle wood witch weed )
b. Stem Loranthus (Banda or Deudrophae)