Harveya purpurea
Species of flowering plant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harveya purpurea is an annual herb with large, showy flowers and scale-like leaves, parasitic on the roots of shrubs and trees, endemic to South Africa in the Eastern and Western Cape.[2][3] It occurs from the Cederberg to the Cape Peninsula, and along the coastal belt to Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape, mainly among fynbos, on stony slopes and sandy flats.[4]
| Harveya purpurea | |
|---|---|
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| Plate from Hooker’s Icones Plantarum | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Lamiales |
| Family: | Orobanchaceae |
| Genus: | Harveya |
| Species: | H. purpurea |
| Binomial name | |
| Harveya purpurea | |
| Synonyms | |
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Harveya species are native to Africa, Madagascar, and Yemen. This species is holoparasitic- that is, entirely non-photosynthetic, with a preference for members of the Campanulaceae such as Roella and Wahlenbergia. The disabling of the photosynthesis gene has happened independently several times in Scrophulariales.[5][6]