If you are from southern karnataka or kerala, and if you have ever shot
stones at Mango Trees in their fruiting season, you would have spotted a
cluster of leaves in some branches which are definitely not Mango tree’s. Yes,
it’s a different plant altogether, which never in it’s life goes anywhere near
soil. It takes birth atop the gigantic trees, grows to a considerable shrub and
makes its family on the same tree or others. Ask about it with local people,
they would curse the plant. They would say it kills the mango tree. It’s a well
known anti-hero.
It’s a parasitic plant, which depends on the host tree for food, shelter and
life at large. The generic term for the plant is ‘bandaNige (ಬಂದಣಿಗೆ)’ in kannada, ‘Mistletoe’
in English.
Parasites are considered an enemy of trees. As the parasite gets
stronger, the host branch of the tree diminishes and dies. However, a strong
tree develops a different branch and maintains itself in spite of parasite’s
presence. But, if the parasite attack is on all the branches, it suffers acute
shortage of food and gives up the fight for life over a long timespan, may be
some 50 years
This article is about a parasite called ‘dendrophthoe falcata’.
[Dendrophthoe falcata on the host plant Artocarpus gomezianus (ಕೆತ್ತೆಹುಳಿ/ಉಂಡೆಹುಳಿ). Both parasite and host
are co-existing for more than 30 years now, beyond the time of my oldest
memories]
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| Host and parasite |
Whatever
be the emotional reasons of the mango tree’s owner to hate a parasite, this
particular unfriendly guest is not something that we can strike off simply as
cruel or useless. Firstly, I love its flowers. They are with unusually long
petals. It appears as if the base and top of the flower first appear and the
tubular part in between elongates later to make it complete (observe the
different growth stages of the flower in the picture).
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| Dendrophthoe falcata - flower growth |
Once the flower bud is fully grown-up, the top end of the tube opens up to
curl out the green petals. I was in a dilemma whether only this green part
(curled outside) is the petal or the whole tube is. Dr. Gopala Krishna Bhat
(Flora of Udupi fame) has clearly documented that the long tube + the green
crown at the end together make the petals (=corolla). I guess calyx (calyx = an
envelope to the flower – imagine a rose bud which has a green envelope, which is
broken when the flower open.) is reduced to none in the evolution path.
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| Dendrophthoe falcata fruits |
I was lucky to get fruits for the photograph too. Out of many flowers in the
bunch, only 3 had fertilized. God knows which bird/insect or other natural
force, this plant depends on, to string its generation to the next!. I have
never tasted the fruits so far, but Mr. Shivakumar, an expert in forest fruits
told me that these fruits was the chewing gum in their childhood days!.
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| Clasp of the parasite onto the host |
Chewing gum?! Why would this plant ever produce fruits with sticky pulp? A
little thought would make it clear. Only if it is sticky, would the fruit stick
on to a tree and the seedlings will establish on the host.
The connection thus established between host and the parasite is called
‘haustorium’, a complex biological structure using which the sucker tenant
penetrates into the tissues of the tree and pulls liquid and nutrients to feed
on.
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| Dendrophthoe leaves |
Leaves are in pairs and midrib is reddish. Petiole (the small stick which
connects leaf to the plant) is too short or rather absent.
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| Cobweb hosted on the flower bunch |
If at all we ever to conclude that a mistletoe is a harmful killer, we are
grossly mistaken.
[According to what I read in Wiki,] it was earlier believed that this species
is not-so-significant in the ecological cycle; but now discovered to be playing
a key role in nature. Some birds depend on its fruits for food and stick the
residual seeds onto other trees in return of this help. Red ants build their
nest by turning and joining the edges of the young, flexible leaves of the
plant.
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| Weaver ants just built a nest on young leaves |
I could also notice a cobweb, may be intentionally knitted around the
flower-buds to grab the insects which visit in the lure of nectar. There may be
tens of other life forms this plant is inter-dependent with, that we may not
even be aware of.
***
Now, for a moment just imagine, the plants had some thinking and emotions.
Imagine they had a language and could communicate with each other, atleast
among the same species. If we, in the human world, call parasitic plants as
harmful, how would two parasitic plants discuss about us when we walk under
them? – will the word ‘parasite’ suffice to describe us or will they have some
really better word to describe human kind of parasitism? Can we compare a
dendrophthoe killing a plant in around 50 years of time to human beings cutting
a well grown forest in around a week? Can drying up of rivers, creating hills
of debris, destroying ozone, causing melting of remotest ice layers in Arctic,
poisoning air, water and soil be called just parasitism? If depending on
another species for food and shelter is parasitism, what would killing an
entire species be called? and how about wiping out a thousand such species in a
year and pushing another ten thousand into rare-endangered-threatened list?
I am sure even those two plants in discussion about we human beings, would
have no word in their vocabulary.
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