Distribution of the four main parasite types on plant families. Colour code: Black, non-parasites. Green, hemiparasites. Brown, holoparasites. Dark green (Cuscuta), some species almost or completely lack chlorophyll and hence are holoparasitic. Percentages are in relation to the total number of parasitic plants. Apodanthaceae, Cytinaceae, and Mitrastemonaceae used to be in Rafflesiaceae. Orobanchaceae includes parasitic Scrophulariaceae. Arrow to Loranthaceae is dashed to indicate only a minority of the genera (3 of 73) represent root parasites. Similarly, in Rafflesia only a few species occasionally occurs as stem parasites.

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