Parasitoid - Parasitoidal Plants

Parasitoidal Plants

There are parasitoidal plants as well. Various species of dodder indiscriminately parasitise wide ranges of host plants, and debilitate or kill the branches that they infect, and commonly the whole host plant as well.

Mistletoes in families such as Santalaceae and Loranthaceae commonly accumulate on host trees till they stunt and eventually kill them, sometimes after many decades. Occasionally a freak condition can arise where the (strictly speaking "hemiparasitic") plant can supply sufficient photosynthetic power to support the root system of a small host tree for several years after the live host shoots have effectively disappeared.

A related example is where the parasitoid plant is not strictly a parasite in the normal sense, but nonetheless exploits the host's resources of space, support and light. The best-known are the so-called "strangler figs". Some of them will grow on and round the trunk of the host tree and squeeze it or starve it of light until, after perhaps decades, it dies. The strangler eventually replaces the host utterly as the original trunk rots from within the stems of the strangler, leaving a hollow framework.