A delicate parasite: Buchnera tomentosa

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During a recent hike in the province of Zambales in western Luzon, I chanced upon some plants of Buchnera tomentosa, a member of the mostly parasitic family Orobanchaceae. Buchnera is a genus of small plants distributed from North, Central, and South America; Africa; Madagascar, India; India, Southeast Asia; and Australia. Only B. tomentosa is known from the Philippines.These plants have been found from sea level to about 1800 m above sea level.


Like many plants from the family, Buchnera species are parasitic on grasses. Unlike many plants from the family, Buchnera are hemi-parasitic, which means that the plants are still capable of photosynthesis instead of relying solely to their hosts for all their nutritional needs, like the holo-parasites do. As such, buchneras do bear leaves, which in B. tomentosa is a rosette of elongate-ovate leaves with obscurely toothed margins. Each rosette is about 2 to 2.5 cm in diameter. They are that tiny. The inflorescences tower well above the foliage, likely an adaptation to steer the flowers clear from the surrounding grasses. Flower color is in varying shades of purple.


I must admit- these lilliputian plants are cute. I can imagine a dainty clump looking engaging in a small clay pot, except for one hurdle: I will need to cultivate the grasses that they parasitize. Methinks I need to think hard about that for a moment...


Comments

  1. Kang Bas31 August 2020 at 17:08

    According to Plant of The World (http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:800098-1)
    distribution range of Buchnera tomentosa is Java and Lesser Sunda, not Philippines.

    In Plant Resources of South-East Asia, No 12(3), Medicinal and poisonous plants 3
    stated that only 5 species in Malesian region (1 Java, 1 in the Philippines, 4 in New Guinea). But i am not sure which Philippines species

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kang Bas31 August 2020 at 17:14

      Or maybe, just Kew website (data) need update?

      Delete
    2. Jardinerong Sunog11 September 2020 at 00:23

      Blogger, once again, failed to chime me. Apologies for the very late reply. But here is my source: https://philippineplants.org/Families/Orobanchaceae.html

      Delete

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