Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Kollibri terre Sonnenblume's avatar

As soon as I saw the headline of this essay in my email, I was hoping you'd be talking about that fascinating species of flower! I'm totally happy for you that you got to meet her after wanting to for so long. I also really liike hearing first-hand accounts about what it's like in countries other than the US, so I really enjoyed this.

On the topic of plant parasitism, I've been wanting to learn more. My initial forays into the literature suggest that the relationship is not necessarily purely exploitative, or is not necessarily harmful to the host. In my own observations, I've seen lots of living mistletoe on living trees and shrubs, but haven't seen a situation where the host seemed to be suffering. It's not in the interest of the mistletoe to kill the tree or shrub, after all. There are so many parasitic and hemi-parasitic (only partly parasitic) plants out there, and I'm sure there must be a spectrum of effects. I don't know where Rafflesia falls on it.

So, as a fellow writer and as a plant person, I question your metaphor here:

"Boasting one of the most extreme manifestations of parasitic mode found in Nature, she is completely dependent upon her host plant for water, nutrients and products of photosynthesis which she extracts like a settler-colonizer through a specialized root system called haustoria."

Is she really "like a settler-colonizer"? Because the agents of settler colonialism kills their host and replace them. Parasitic plants, being dependent on their hosts, cannot replace them. How often do they kill them? In the animal world and the microscopic world, obviously it's different, as many parasites do kill their hosts, but is it so between plants? And with this plant in particular?

There's also the issue of "malice." Settler-colonialism employs malice, which I would describe as a malevolent intent. Do parasitic plants do the same thing? Do any plants?

These are the sorts of questions I have about plant parasitism.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading the essay and look forward to more!

Expand full comment
1 more comment...

No posts