EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -haustorium, highly modified stem or root of a parasitic plant or a specialized branch or tube originating from a hairlike filament (hypha) of a fungus. The haustorium penetrates the tissues of a host and absorbs nutrients and water.

Detailed explanation-2: -Parasitic plants produce root-like structures called haustoria which penetrate the host, connect to its vasculature and facilitate the exchange of materials such as water, nutrients, and pathogens between the host and the parasite, and between any plants simultaneously parasitized, even unrelated plant species.

Detailed explanation-3: -Parasitic plants thrive by infecting other plants. Flowering plants evolved parasitism independently at least 12 times, in all cases developing a unique multicellular organ called the haustorium that forms upon detection of haustorium-inducing factors derived from the host plant.

Detailed explanation-4: -haustorial root (haustorium (singular); haustoria (plural)) A specialized, modified root of parasitic plants that penetrates into a host plant and functions to acquire necessary nutrients from the host plant they attached themselves to.

Detailed explanation-5: -A haustorium is formed when a specialized fungal hypha penetrates a plant cell wall and expands inside that cell (ref. 2; Fig. 1A). However, the haustorium is not located directly in plant cell cytoplasm; instead, it is surrounded by an extrahaustorial membrane, a thickened derivative of the plant cell plasma membrane.