Parasitic plants

Cherry Ballart is a small tree, very like a cypress in appearance with a soft feathery look (hence its name: cupressiformis = cypress like). Bright red and tasty berries often adorn the branches. This species does not look like a parasite as it is not piggybacking on another plant. If we look underground, we will find it cheekily attached to the roots of neighbouring plants, tapping into their food supplies.

Cherry Ballart are a gift to wildlife; creating cool shade, providing fruit to eat and hosting a variety of invertebrates. This offering then attracts larger animals such as birds and possums.

At Sydney Olympic Park, mistletoes are found hitching a ride (and dinner) in acacias, eucalypts and casuarinas. Mistletoes don’t have roots like other plants. They grow a pad that becomes cemented to the host stem, like a holdfast, with the mistletoe growing into the host from this point. Development of the mistletoe plant is then like any normal plant, except that it is embedded in the host instead of a root system in the soil.

Mistletoebirds love their fruit and are fantastic mistletoe farmers. They create more mistletoe by transporting the sticky seeds onto new hosts. Amazingly, Mistletoebirds process these seeds through their simple guts in less than 12 minutes!

Mistletoes are little biodiversity hotspots because, like the Cherry Ballart, what they take from trees they give back to wildlife in the form of shelter, fruit and nectar.