This parasitic plant consists of just flashy flowers and creepy suckers
Doorknobs in skirts. Microphones in tutus. There are lots of ways to describe Langsdorffia flowers, but parasitic-plant specialist Chris Thorogood says they “absolutely look to me like deep-sea creatures.” Whatever you compare them to, the flowers are intricate, screaming red showpieces. That’s the total opposite of the unshowy rest of the plant. It has no leaves, just grayish, ropelike tissue that probes through soil and ranks in looks somewhere between blah and dried-up dog droppings. The mix of flashy sexual parts and super-simplified other structures makes sense for the plant kingdom’s extreme parasites, including the four known Langsdorffia species. Why grow a lot of greenery to feed yourself when you can steal what you need (SN: 8/23/16)? “They’re vampire plants,” says Thorogood, at the University of Oxford Botanic Garden & Arboretum. Langsdorffia’s underground rope sucks all the nutrition it needs from the roots of other plants, such as figs and mimosas. The burrowing...