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Thesium
Also called Rootthugs
Thesium is a genus of root-parasitic flowering plants, mostly wild herbs and small shrubs, with about half its species found in South Africa. They attach to the roots of other plants to get water and nutrients, so they are not grown as typical garden plants.
Thesium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Santalaceae. It is particularly well represented in South Africa, where roughly half the species occur. Nickrent and others argue that the genera Austroamericium Hendrych, Chrysothesium (Jaub. & Spach) Hendrych, Kunkeliella Stearn, and Thesidium Sond should be considered as part of this genus.
Species in this genus are parasitic on roots. Fruits of Thesium species are nutlike achenes.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Thesium 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.
