Haustorium reaches its 90th issue! Many thanks to Chris Parker for his dedication to the newsletter, and to Lytton Musselman and all contributors. This issue takes a closer look at the sunflower broomrape (Orobanche cumana) outbreak near Yakima, USA. Following its discovery in 2025, authorities introduced strict quarantine measures and carried out intensive treatment […]
We will continue our IPPS online seminar series with the following talks on October 7th at 1 PM GMT: Xiao-Jian QU from College of Life Sciences, Shandong Normal University, China: “Deciphering Evolution of Parasitism and Rapid Post-fire Resprouting in Alpine Thesium ramosoides” and Marco BÜRGER from Plant Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, USA: […]
We are happy to announce the relaunch of the IPPS Online Seminar Series on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026, at 13:00 GMT. Prof. Yukihiro Sugimoto from Kobe University, Japan, will talk about: “Tandem gene duplication drives the molecular evolution of orobanchol in cowpea” and Prof. Qia Wang from the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of […]
On Thursday 4 June 2026 the IPPS held an online General Assembly. The date was purposely chosen as it marked the 25th anniversary of the society. On 4 June 2001, at the occasion of the 7th International Parasitic Weed Symposium (meetings that are nowadays called the World Congress on Parasitic Plants, WCPP) , in Nantes, […]
Issue 89 of Haustorium is now available, featuring the latest developments and discoveries in parasitic plant research. Highlights include the first confirmed report of sunflower broomrape (Orobanche cumana) in North America, raising concerns for sunflower production, and a fascinating feature on the striking purple toothwort. This issue also includes updates on combating Striga, from […]
The 4th International Congress on Strigolactones (ICS2026) will be held in Paris from 5–8 October 2026. The conference focuses on strigolactones as specialised metabolites that function as phytohormones and rhizosphere signals. For further details, please follow the link: https://ics2026.sciencesconf.org/ […]
The 18th WCPP has been postponed till further notice. Due to unforeseen difficulties with the local venue, the IPPS has had to make the very difficult decision to postpone the 18th World Congress on Parasitic Plants that was planned for 31 May till 6 June this year. We are currently convening over the planning for a […]
The IPPS website currently features 50 photos, primarily of parasitic plants, all freely available for download to IPPS members. Please remember to credit the source when using these images. To access these photos, sign in to your IPPS account, go to “Photos”, and click “Free – Purchase.” Then select “Checkout” to email the photos […]
Dear IPPS members, I hope you are all doing well. As the president of the International Parasitic Plant Society, and on behalf of the whole Executive Committee, I want to share my very best New Year wishes to all of you, through this means. I hope the year 2026 will be another year of exciting […]
We are pleased to announce the speakers for our December IPPS seminars. First talk: Prof. Natalia Pabón Mora from the University of Antioquia, Colombia, will talk about “From hidden bodies to normal flowers: The limits of developmental reprogramming in holoparasitic plants” Second talk: Dr. Huiting Zhang, from the Washington State University, USA, will talk about […]