''Sapria himalayana'', commonly known as the hermit's spittoon, is a rare

holoparasitic A parasitic plant is a plant that derives some or all of its nutritional requirements from another living plant. They make up about 1% of angiosperms and are found in almost every biome. All parasitic plants develop a specialized organ called the ...

flowering plant related to '' Rafflesia'' found in the

Eastern Himalaya ] The Eastern Himalayas extend from eastern Nepal across Northeast India, Bhutan, the Tibet Autonomous Region to Yunnan in China and northern Myanmar. The climate of this region is influenced by the monsoon of South Asia from June to September. It ...

s.Adhikari, D., Arunachalam, A., Majumder, M., Sarmah, R. & Khan, M.L. (2003) "A rare root parasitic plant (Sapria himalayana Griffith.) in Namdapha National Park, northeastern India", ''Current Science'' 85 (12), p. 1669
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/ref> ''Sapria himalayana'' represents the extreme manifestation of the parasitism, parasitic mode, being completely dependent on its host plant for water, nutrients and products of

photosynthesis Photosynthesis is a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy that, through cellular respiration, can later be released to fuel the organism's activities. Some of this chemical energy is stored i ...

which it sucks through a specialised root system called haustoria. These haustoria are attached to both the xylem and the phloem of the host plant.

Geographical distribution

It has been recorded in

Namdapha National Park Namdapha National Park is a large protected area in Arunachal Pradesh of Northeast India. The park was established in 1983. With more than 1,000 floral and about 1,400 faunal species, it is a biodiversity hotspot in the Eastern Himalayas. The ...

Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

. There are historical records of the species from other areas in Northeast India such as Mishmi Hills

Aka Hills Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...

in Arunachal Pradesh, and in

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

Manipur Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of Myanm ...

and

Meghalaya Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of As ...

, but there have been no recent records of the species from these areas. In Thailand it is found in Doi Suthep National Park, Doi Inthanon,

Doi Phu Kha National Park Doi Phu Kha National Park ( th, อุทยานแห่งชาติดอยภูคา) covers a part of 8 districts in the Luang Prabang Range, Nan Province, Northern Thailand and has rich natural resources. It is Northern Thailand's l ...

, Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, Kaeng Krachan National Park in the Tenasserim Hills. It is also found in the Dawna and

Karen Hills The Karen Hills, () also known as Kayah-Karen Mountains, are one of the main hill ranges in eastern Burma. They are located at the SW corner of Shan State and in Kayah State, a mountainous region where the only relatively flat area is Loikaw, t ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

and in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. Its natural habitat are

evergreen forest An evergreen forest is a forest made up of evergreen trees. They occur across a wide range of climatic zones, and include trees such as conifers and holly in cold climates, eucalyptus, Live oak, acacias, magnolia, and banksia in more temperate zone ...

s at altitudes between 800 and 1,450 metres. In Vietnam, it is only known from the Lang Biang Plateau, where it has been recorded at Tuyền Lâm Lake, the Nam Ban Protection Forest, and the Cam Ly area. Recently, ''Sapria himalayana'' has also been spotted by one amateur researcher and Child specialist by profession Dr. Jayom Karlo in the hills of Perlek Modi (94⁰49′ 18″ E to 94⁰44′ 47″ E and 27⁰ 49′ 10″ N to 27⁰47′ 45″ N) of

West Siang District West Siang (Pron:/ˈsjæŋ or ˈsɪæŋ/) is an administrative district in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in India. History In 1989, territory was given from West Siang to the East Siang district. Since 1999, this territory has been in the new ...

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...

. On 12 Nov 2020, in a village called Khunbi (Yulli),

Tengnoupal District Tengnoupal district ( Meitei pronunciation:/teŋ-nə́u-pəl/) is a district in Manipur, India. It was created in December 2016 by splitting the Chandel district. The district headquarters has been relocated to Tengnoupal – (). In the 1960s a ...

(neighbouring district of Myanmar),

, India has spotted ''Sapria himalayana'' by a villager while tracking in a jungle nearby the village.

Description

The visible body is globose. The flowers are about 20 cm across,

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

and unisexual. They have 10

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s and are bright red in colour covered with sulphur-yellow spots. They appear above the ground, bloom for 2–3 days and have a putrid odour. Flowers are fleshy with imbricate

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

. Perianth is campanulate. Male flowers have 2-loculed anthers, broadly ellipsoid,

dehiscent Dehiscence is the splitting of a mature plant structure along a built-in line of weakness to release its contents. This is common among fruits, anthers and sporangia. Sometimes this involves the complete detachment of a part; structures that op ...

by apical pores; apical cupular body base convex; gynostegium blood red. The female flowers have a concave cupular body base with sterile stamens. Gynostegium stouter than stamens. Flowering and fruiting season occurs between December and February. After blooming, the flower dehisces and becomes dark in colour and subsequently decomposes slowly. Fruits are swollen and crowned with perianth. The seeds are of the size of a grape fruit and are blackish-brown in colour. ''Sapria'' is a root parasite and its usual hosts are

liana A liana is a long- stemmed, woody vine that is rooted in the soil at ground level and uses trees, as well as other means of vertical support, to climb up to the canopy in search of direct sunlight. The word ''liana'' does not refer to a ta ...

sElliott, S. (1992) "Status, Ecology and Conservation of ''Sapria himalayana'' Griff. (Rafflesiaceae) in Thailand", ''Journal of Wildlife in Thailand'', 2(1) pp. 44–5
LINK
/ref> such as ''

Vitis ''Vitis'' (grapevine) is a genus of 79 accepted species of vining plants in the flowering plant family Vitaceae. The genus is made up of species predominantly from the Northern Hemisphere. It is economically important as the source of grapes, b ...

'' and ''

Tetrastigma ''Tetrastigma'' is a genus of plants in the grape family, Vitaceae. The plants are lianas that climb with tendrils and have palmately compound leaves. Plants are dioecious, with separate male and female plants; female flowers are characterized ...

''. The flowering shoot is short, erect and unbranched. It has been suggested that flies pollinate it while seed dispersal may be by rodents, but this has not been confirmed by direct observation.

References

External links

* Liming Cai ''et al.'': Deeply Altered Genome Architecture in the Endoparasitic Flowering Plant Sapria himalayana Griff. (Rafflesiaceae). Current Biology, published online January 23, 2021; doi:10.1016/j.cub.2020.12.045. See also: :
Scientists Sequence Genome of Rare Parasitic Flowering Plant
On: sci-news. Jan 25, 2021 {{Taxonbar, from=Q3205766 Rafflesiaceae Parasitic plants Flora of East Himalaya Flora of Assam (region) Flora of Myanmar Flora of Thailand Flora of Vietnam