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Parasitaxus is a genus with one species, Parasitaxus usta (the corail), a rare woody shrub up to about 1.8 m tall from New Caledonia that lives parasitically on the roots of Falcatifolium taxoides. It is a plant that is not grown in gardens and is known mainly from remote forests.
Parasitaxus usta, the corail, also known in French as cèdre rabougri, is a rare species of conifer in the family Podocarpaceae, and the sole species of the monotypic genus Parasitaxus.
It is generally mentioned that Parasitaxus usta is the only known parasitic gymnosperm. The species lacks roots and is always found attached to roots identified as of Falcatifolium taxoides (another member of the Podocarpaceae). The first study of the union of P. usta with a host showed anatomical changes typical of a parasite. However, the question is still left open, as the plant is in any case not a haustorial parasite, which is usually the case with angiosperms. Certain experts therefore consider the plant as a myco-heterotroph.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Parasitaxus 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.
