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Rhamphicarpa fistulosa

species of plant

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 6, 2025
Entity authorityQ15298440
Source-derived summary

Rhamphicarpa fistulosa (common name: rice vampireweed) is a flowering plant species in the family Orobanchaceae (formerly in the family Scrophulariaceae) - and the genus Rhamphicarpa. The plant is pale-green but can turn reddish towards maturity. It has needle-like leaves and white flowers with long corolla tubes. The flowers only open after sunset and are supposedly pollinated by night moths. The plant has a broad distribution in Africa (from Guinea to Madagascar and from Sudan to South Africa) and can also be found in New Guinea and northern Australia.

Rhamphicarpa fistulosa is an annual facultative hemi-parasitic forb species. It is a very widespread species in seasonally flooded wetlands in tropical and sub-tropical Africa, and it is increasingly important as a parasitic weeds in rain-fed lowland rice systems in Africa, where yield losses of more than 60% are typically reported. It is particularly a problem in rice fields prone to temporary, uncontrolled flooding. Management strategies against Rhamphicarpa fistulosa are limited; hand-weeding, permanent flooding, fertilizer applications and the use of herbicides are currently known, effective control measures. In addition, a number of high-yielding, resistance and tolerant rice varieties has recently been identified.

Editorial summary

“Rhamphicarpa fistulosa” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rhamphicarpa, fistulosa and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical orientation to terminology and classification, particularly when read beside dated observations, specimens or technical literature. The current 189-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Rhamphicarpa, fistulosa and species.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Rhamphicarpa fistulosa” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Rhamphicarpa, fistulosa and species provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q15298440. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Rhamphicarpa fistulosa” 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.