Aphyllon franciscanum / yellow-clustered broomrape

Adjectives: drought tolerant, exposed, interesting bits, LSRP, native, parasite, seed bank

Synonym: Orobanche fasciculata var. franciscana

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This is a locally rare, native, herbaceous perennial. It is parasitic on buckwheats, some cottongrasses, scorpionweeds and probably others… but never, apparently, on the sagebrushes (Artemisia spp.).

Yellow-clustered broomrape has clusters of flowering stalks, ca. 6″ tall. They totally lack leaves. Both the stems and flowers are very hairy. The flowers are bright yellow and tubular, held more or less horizontally. The tubes provide a small obstacle course for their bee pollinators.

Broomrape fruits are capsules containing “great numbers” of minute, dust-like seeds that last for years in the soil. The plants spread either when the seeds land on a host or by an infected host itself spreading.

Interesting bits – Broomrape’s existence is an interesting result of horizontal host-to-parasite gene transfer… in this case, hundreds of thousands of years ago involving an (unknown) ancient species of a bedstraw (Galium spp.) and a progenitor species of Aphyllon. Genetic analysis suggests that the host–parasite associations have been stable at least since then.