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.
Striga asiatica
Also called Mealie Witchweed, Witchweed, Buri, Common Mealie Witchweed, Isona Weed, Matabele Flower, Mealie Poison
Asiatic witchweed is a small hemiparasitic annual that attaches to the roots of grasses, mainly cereal crops like maize, sorghum, rice and sugar cane, and draws water and nutrients from them. It is a serious agricultural pest and is not grown as an ornamental.
Striga asiatica, the Asiatic witchweed or the red witchweed, is a hemiparasitic plant in the family Orobanchaceae. It is native to Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but has been introduced into other parts of the world including Australia and the United States. Asiatic witchweed is a serious agricultural pest, as it parasitises important crop species, including corn, rice, sorghum, and sugar cane, often causing substantial yield reductions.
While it is native to Africa and Asia, it is invasive in farmlands of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Striga asiatica 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.
