Epifagus
genus of plants
Epifagus virginiana, commonly called beech drops (or beech-drops or beechdrops), is an obligate parasitic plant which grows and subsists on the roots of American beech. It is a member of the family Orobanchaceae. The genus Epifagus is monotypic—containing only E. virginiana. The name Epifagus derives from Greek "epi" meaning "on" or "upon", and "Fagus" which is the genus name of beech.
Description
Beechdrops is a parasitic plant native to eastern North America. It entirely lacks chlorophyll and produces many brown stems up to 30 cm (12 in) tall on which it bears small white and purple flowers that appear in July through October. The flowers have tubular, zygomorphic corollas ~8 mm long containing a single style and four stamens. The dried flower stalks will persist throughout the winter. The flowers on the lower parts of the plant are cleistogamous (self-pollinating), while the tops of the stems have chasmogamous (cross-pollinating) flowers, which may be sterile.
Beechdrops contain very small alternate, scale-like leaves, which are a vestigial structure from an ancestor which was photosynthetic.
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This entry incorporates text from “Epifagus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.