Conifer broomrape facts for kids

Orobanche pinorum, also known as conifer broomrape, is a special kind of plant. It lives in the forests of western North America. This plant is a parasite, which means it grows by attaching itself to the roots of other plants. It usually connects to plants from the Holodiscus family.

Conifer broomrape has a stem that stands upright. The bottom part of the stem is wide and thick, while the top part is thinner. It can grow to be about 10 to 30 centimeters (4 to 12 inches) tall.

A Plant Without Leaves?

Since conifer broomrape is a parasite, it gets all its food and nutrients from its host plant. This means it does not need to make its own food using sunlight. Because of this, it does not have any leaves or chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is the green stuff that makes most plants green and helps them turn sunlight into energy. Instead, conifer broomrape is usually brownish or yellowish in color.

The plant produces many flowers that grow together in a dense, spreading cluster. These flowers are yellowish with a hint of purple and are about 1 to 2 centimeters (0.4 to 0.8 inches) long.

How Conifer Broomrape Makes More Plants

Orobanche pinorum mostly reproduces by itself. This is called autogamy, which means a single plant can produce seeds without needing pollen from another plant. Each small seed capsule can hold about 700 seeds. A single conifer broomrape plant can produce over 70,000 seeds in total!

Sometimes, there is a little bit of evidence that pollen might be shared between different plants. This is called xenogamy. However, scientists rarely see insects or other animals that might help carry the pollen from one plant to another.