Striga hermonthica
| Purple witchweed | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Striga hermonthica flowers | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Asterids |
| Order: | Lamiales |
| Family: | Orobanchaceae |
| Genus: | Striga |
| Species: | S. hermonthica |
| Binomial name | |
| Striga hermonthica | |
Striga hermonthica, commonly known as purple or giant witchweed,[1] is a hemiparasitic plant[1] that belongs to the family Orobanchaceae. It is devastating to major crops such as sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) and rice (Oryza sativa).[2] In sub-Saharan Africa it infests, apart from sorghum and rice, also maize (Zea mays), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum).[3] In the late 1990s, "21 million hectares of cereals in Africa were estimated to be infested by S. hermonthica, leading to an estimated annual grain loss of 4.1 million tons".[3]
Striga hermonthica has undergone horizontal gene transfer from Sorghum to its nuclear genome. The S. hermonthica gene, ShContig9483, is most like a Sorghum bicolor gene, and additionally shows significant but lesser similarity to a gene from Oryza sativa. It shows no similarity to any known eudicot gene.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=STHE8
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Yoshida, Satoko; Maruyama, Shinichiro; Nozaki, Hisayoshi; Shirasu, Ken (28 May 2010). "Horizontal Gene Transfer by the Parasitic Plant Stiga hermonthica". Science 328 (5982): 1128. doi:10.1126/science.1187145. PMID 20508124.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Abbasher, A. A.; Hess, D. E.; Sauerborn, J. (1998). "Fungal pathogens for biological control of Striga hermonthica on sorghum and pearl millet in West Africa". African Crop Science Journal 6 (2): 179–188.