North America's Weirdest Parasitic Plant

usually i'm pretty anti-drone, but these shots were great! macro shots are great for those morphological details, but always at the expense of the ecology/systems perspective. p.s. sending my regards to mr. scrotch in these trying times.

Anthony D'Angelo

I think it works great still, as the morphology and location is still weird in itself. And as you said, the deep dive is not so well understood (like mechanism of entry, drawbacks for the host etc.). So it´s totally fine to go from the well known to the lesser researched deep-dive. And I loved the drone footage for seeing an overview of the habitat and its density of plants.

Paul

Your book arrived today. It is a nice little gift to myself today as it is my birthday. Awesome drawings! I am looking forward to a sequel!

We need more drone footage. It helps (me, at least) to see the larger picture of where these plants fit into the landscape, no pun intended. Thanks for highlighting where to go in Genbank to do research, not just a generic "go to their website." Last, that's one cool parasite. It could've been it's own (long) video, but this video works. Thanks, and take care.

Sy Fie

@ April Hughes: That's slightly horrifying and wholly fascinating about the dodders locating its host plant by smell.

Sy Fie

The little butterflies are Hairstreaks. Skippers have larger abdomens than hairstreaks and they also have 4 winglets. Allegedly. Endoparasites are creepy. Like the wasps who lay their eggs in big juicy caterpillars. Dodder is not an endoparasite, but it is creepy, because an article I read in a research journal had some preliminary findings that dodder could locate it's host plant by smell, and would start moving in that direction. I never heard anything about the final results of the story.

April Hughes

So interesting that a curcubit would go parasitic, they are climbers. This one gave up on the climbing! :) So interesting! Now I want to try that BLAST and see where they fit in.

Jay Holmes

Very rad, I had no idea there were endoparasitic plants. Also great use of the drone footage, and hopefully you get to use that more, will give us all a better understanding and view of the landscapes

Kimi

Great vid. I loved the diversion into Genbank, and the curcubit parasite was fascinating.

Patrick Sweetman

Agreed! Context is always cool when possible. I'd almost split Pilostyles out, but hey, we'll keep on supporting regardless.

Esoteric

love the drone footage, completely unfamiliar with the local geology so gave great context thank you