Plants which Feed in Different Ways

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Plants which Feed in Different Ways
By Paul Billiet and Shirley Burchill
The Open Door Web Site

Most flowering plants are green but a few manage to survive without chlorophyll.

Parasitic Plants
A few plants manage to survive without chlorophyll. Some of them, such as the broomrape and the dodder, are parasites. They have special roots which penetrate the body of another living, green plant to suck its sap. This is how parasitic plants feed. They do not photosynthesize themselves so they do not make any chlorophyll.

Lichens
Lichens are formed by a partnership between two organisms, certain fungi and certain simple, green plants called algae (singular: alga). The fungus provides the support for this partnership and the alga, through photosynthesis, feeds both of them.

These two organisms, the fungus and the alga, live so well together that they grow better combined as a lichen than they would do on their own. When this happens we call the relationship mutualism or symbiosis.

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