The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Orobanche fasciculata
Also called Clustered Cancer Root, Tufted Broomrape, Yellow Cancer Root, Purple Broomrape
Clustered broomrape is a holoparasitic wildflower that grows on the roots of other plants, mainly sagebrush and related shrubs, and has no chlorophyll of its own. It is hard to cultivate because it needs a living host plant underground, so it is rarely grown in gardens.
Orobanche fasciculata is a species of broomrape known by the common name clustered broomrape. It is native to much of western and central North America from Alaska to northern Mexico to the Great Lakes region, where it grows in many types of habitat. It is a parasite growing attached to the roots of other plants, usually members of the Asteraceae such as Artemisia; and other genera such as Eriodictyon and Eriogonum. This plant produces one or more stems from a bulbous root, growing erect to a maximum of about 20 centimeters in height. The stems, leaves and five-lobed flowers are covered by sticky hairs. As a parasite taking its nutrients from a host plant, it lacks chlorophyll as well as a water-storage system. It is variable in color, often yellowish or purple. The inflorescence is a raceme of up to 20 flowers, each on a pedicel up to 15 centimetres (5+7⁄8 in) long.
Among the Zuni people it is a traditional remedy for hemorrhoids. The whole plant was ground up using two stones and the powder inserted into the rectum.
Broomrape · Chaparral broomrape · California broomrape · Flat-top broomrape · Louisiana broomrape · Parish's broomrape · Conifer broomrape · Oneflowered broomrape · Rock Creek broomrape · Hillside broomrape
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Orobanche fasciculata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
