The family Apodanthaceae comprises 22 to 30 species of endoparasitic

Parasitism

Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Traditionally parasite referred to organisms with lifestages that needed more than one host . These are now called macroparasites...

 herbs

Herbaceous plant

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

. They live in branches or roots of their host (as filaments similar to a fungal mycelium

Mycelium

thumb|right|Fungal myceliaMycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae. The mass of hyphae is sometimes called shiro, especially within the fairy ring fungi. Fungal colonies composed of mycelia are found in soil and on or within many other...

), emerging only to flower. The only leaves present are several bracts at the base of each flower. The plants do not carry out any photosynthesis (that is, they are holoparasitic). These are distributed into three genera: Pilostyles

Pilostyles

Pilostyles is a genus of flowering plants placed in the family Apodanthaceae, or alternately, the Rafflesiaceae. It includes several species of parasitic plants that live inside the stems of other plants and produce tiny flowers that burst through the surface of the host plants' tissue...

, Apodanthes, and Berlinianche. Attempts to determine the relationships of Apodanthaceae have produced only uncertain results and they remain as enigmatic as ever.