{"id":33935,"date":"2018-10-30T15:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33935"},"modified":"2018-10-30T15:00:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:30:10","slug":"it-has-white-flowers-but-a-covetous-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/it-has-white-flowers-but-a-covetous-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"It has white flowers, but a covetous heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/scientists-discover-new-parasitic-plant-in-nagaland\/article20551737.ece\"><b>It has white flowers, but a covetous heart<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists have discovered a new species of parasitic flowering plant, <\/span><b><i>Gleadovia konyakianorum, <\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0that has no chlorophyll, and survives by feeding on another species of plant<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b><i>Gleadovia konyakianorum<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The species<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Gleadovia konyakianorum<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is named so in honour of the Konyak tribe of Nagas.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was identified during a botanical exploration earlier this year near Tobu town of Mon district in eastern Nagaland.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a holoparasite [complete parasite] that derives its entire nutritional requirement from the host plant, which is a Strobilanthes species.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The plant was found in the semi-evergreen forest at an altitude of 1,500-1,600 metres. The details of the newly discovered species was published in the journal <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Phytotaxa<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Though the plant has no chlorophyll, the plant has a vascular system and extracts its nutrition from the host plant with the help of a haustorium.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is a haustorium?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> A haustorium is a specialized structure with which plant parasites attach themselves to the tissue of host plants and derive nutrition.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Specifications<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gleadovia konyakianorum<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a root parasite that grows up to 10 cm in height, and bears white, tubular flowers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gleadovia konyakianorum<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0is only the fourth species from the genus Gleadovia to be found in the world. The other three are <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gleadovia banerjiana<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (discovered in Manipur), <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gleadovia mupinense<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (found in China) and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gleadovia ruborum<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (discovered in Uttarakhand and also reported from China).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The white flowering parasite was found in a group of 15-20 plants, and since the species hasn\u2019t been reported anywhere else, scientists have described its status as \u2018<\/span><b>data deficient<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019 as per the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species Criteria.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Plant parasites are differentiated as stem and root parasites. Common stem parasites found in India are Loranthus sp, on Mango trees, and <i style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">Cuscuta reflexa<\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a climber. Among the root parasites are Sapria himalayana, a rare holoparasitic flowering plant found in Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has white flowers, but a covetous heart Context Scientists have discovered a new species of parasitic flowering plant, Gleadovia konyakianorum, \u00a0that has no chlorophyll, and survives by feeding on another species of plant. Gleadovia konyakianorum The species Gleadovia konyakianorum, is named so in honour of the Konyak tribe of Nagas. It was identified during&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/it-has-white-flowers-but-a-covetous-heart\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">It has white flowers, but a covetous heart<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704913601},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}