Species of Balanophora are parasitic plants that live underground and emerge above ground only during the flowering season — and some species even reproduce exclusively asexually. This collage shows species studied to establish how the plants of that group relate to each other, how they modified their plastids and how their reproduction fits into their ecology.
© Kobe University (CC BY)
A recently published paper in New Phytologist on the biology of the parasitic plants *Balanophora*, by three botanists from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, together with Kenji Suetsugu of Kobe University, should cause consternation in creationist circles — if only they were not so practised at dismissing any evidence that contradicts their superstition.
Not only does the study highlight the well-known problem of parasitism, which creationists typically attempt to wave aside by invoking “The Fall” — thereby exposing any claim that creationism is a genuine science rather than a form of Christian fundamentalism as a lie — it also reveals that the evolution of this group of plants has involved a loss of complexity, coupled with the repurposing of redundant structures. The result is what creationists themselves would describe as irreducible complexity, accompanied by precisely the kind of “complex specified genetic information” that William A. Dembski insists should be regarded as evidence for intelligent design.
Then there is the problem of an overly complex solution, in that, instead of simply giving the plants the genes they need, some essential genes have been included in cell organelles These are clearly repurposed chloroplasts that no longer perform photosynthesis, produced by an evolutionary process that creationists deny - leaving them to explain why an intelligent designer opted for such an overly complex solution.
Finally, the findings rely entirely on the Theory of Evolution to explain and make sense of the observations, with no hint of any need to invoke the supernatural magic upon which creationism depends — despite repeated assurances from creationist cult leaders to their followers that such a moment is imminent, a promise they have been making for over half a century.
What are Balanophora?The research is summarised in a Kobe University press release.Balanophora are among the most evolutionarily extreme flowering plants known, and their history is now reasonably well understood thanks to molecular phylogenetics, comparative genomics, and developmental biology. Far from being an evolutionary anomaly, they are a highly derived branch of the angiosperm tree whose peculiarities make sense only in an evolutionary framework.
Balanophora fungosaBalanophora elongata
Taxonomic position and relationships
Balanophora belong to the family Balanophoraceae, which is now firmly placed within the order Santalales. This is the same order that includes mistletoes (Viscum, Loranthus), sandalwood (Santalum), and other parasitic or hemiparasitic plants.
Key points:
- Balanophoraceae are holoparasites: they are entirely dependent on host plants and lack photosynthesis.
- Molecular phylogenies place them deeply nested within angiosperms, not as a “primitive” lineage.
- Their closest relatives are photosynthetic or partially parasitic Santalales, demonstrating a clear evolutionary transition from autotrophy to parasitism.
This placement alone refutes any suggestion that they represent a separately created “kind”.
Evolution of parasitism
The evolutionary trajectory of Balanophora is characterised by progressive reduction and specialisation, a classic and well-documented pattern in parasitic organisms.
Major evolutionary changes include:
- Complete loss of photosynthesis, including:
- Loss of chlorophyll
- Massive reduction or complete loss of the plastid genome
- Extreme reduction of vegetative organs:
- No true leaves
- No functional roots
- Body largely reduced to a tuberous mass embedded in the host
- Development of haustoria, specialised organs that invade host roots and tap directly into vascular tissues
These changes are not random losses; they are adaptive streamlining, eliminating costly structures that are no longer required while enhancing host exploitation.
Genomic evolution
Genomic studies reveal some of the most dramatic modifications known in plants:
- Plastid genomes are among the smallest ever observed in angiosperms
- Photosynthesis-related genes are deleted or pseudogenised
- Remaining plastid genes are retained only where essential for non-photosynthetic cellular functions
- Nuclear genomes show extensive reorganisation and gene loss
In several species, there is evidence of horizontal gene transfer from host plants into the parasite’s genome, particularly genes associated with parasitic function — a phenomenon now recognised as common in intimate parasitic relationships.
Developmental and reproductive biology
Despite their reduced form, Balanophora retain:
- Flowers with recognisable angiosperm structures
- Sexual reproduction with pollination (often by insects)
- Embryological features that align them with other flowering plants
This combination — extreme vegetative reduction alongside conserved reproductive traits — is exactly what evolutionary theory predicts under strong directional selection.
Biogeography and diversification
Balanophora species are distributed across tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, with patterns consistent with:
- Host specialisation
- Geographic isolation
- Adaptive radiation within parasitic niches
Their diversity mirrors that of their hosts, further reinforcing co-evolution rather than independent origin.
Why Balanophora matter for evolution
From an evolutionary perspective, Balanophora are important because they demonstrate that:
- Evolution does not require increasing complexity
- Loss, reduction, and repurposing of structures can produce highly specialised — and highly successful — organisms
- “Irreducible complexity” can arise through reductive evolution
- Genomes bear clear historical signals of descent, modification, and constraint
From a creationist standpoint, they are deeply inconvenient: they look exactly like what you get when natural selection acts over long periods on a parasitic lineage, and nothing like the product of intentional, optimal design.
How parasitic, asexual plants evolve and live
There are plants that are neither green nor sexually reproductive, but precisely because of that they teach us a lot about what it means to be a plant. New research with Kobe University participation took a close look at Balanophora to learn how such non-green, asexual plants evolve and live.
My long-standing aim is to rethink what it truly means to be a plant. For many years I have been fascinated by plants that have abandoned photosynthesis, and I want to uncover the changes that occur in the process. However, while there have been individual studies on changes in the plants’ genomes, their ecology and their reproduction, we don’t know how they relate to each other.
Kenji Suetsugu, co-corresponding author
Kobe University
Kobe, Japan.
Balanophora species are an extreme example, being non-green plants that feed off the roots of others. They live underground and emerge above ground only during the flowering season — and some species even reproduce exclusively asexually.
For Suetsugu, the challenge therefore was to connect three levels of analysis that have never been integrated for Balanophora: He needed to robustly establish how the plants of that group relate to each other, how they modified their plastids (a part of a plant’s cells which in green plants serves as the cell’s “solar panels”), and how their reproduction fits into their ecology. On what made this particularly challenging, he says:
These plants are rare, patchy and often restricted to steep, humid forests. But years of experience with studying Balanophora both in the lab and in field studies, as well as long-standing relationships with local naturalists made this project possible.
Kenji Suetsugu.
And to complement this intimate knowledge of the species with expertise on highly reduced genomes, he partnered with researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.
In the journal New Phytologist, the team now publishes their results. They found that all plants in the group had an extremely reduced plastid genome (DNA not kept in the plant cell’s nucleus but directly in the plastid), and that this must have happened in their common ancestor, before the plants diversified into different species.It is exciting to see how far a plant can reduce its plastid genome, which at first glance looks as though the plastid is on the verge of disappearing. But looking more closely we found that many proteins are still transported to the plastid, showing that even though the plant has abandoned photosynthesis, the plastid is still a vital part of the plant’s metabolism.
Kenji Suetsugu.
In contrast, asexual reproduction likely evolved repeatedly in the group, as the research team showed. They found that the plants possibly evolved the additional ability to create seeds even without fertilization early on, and that this proved an advantage as they colonized the archipelago spanning from mainland Japan via Okinawa to Taiwan.
Over the past decade I have studied Balanophora pollination and seed dispersal where camel crickets and cockroaches play an unexpected role, but I also noticed that asexual seed production often ensured reproduction when mates or pollinators are scarce.
Kenji Suetsugu.
Eventually, this form of reproduction might have become permanent in some species.
For the Kobe University botanist, the study marks an important step in his effort to understand how non-photosynthetic plants function and persist in ecosystems.
For someone who has spent many hours observing these plants in dark, humid forests, seeing their story unfold at the genomic level is deeply satisfying. My next goal is to connect these results with biochemical measurements to find out what Balanophora plastids actually produce and how these products help sustain the parasitic plants’ growth within the roots of their hosts.
Kenji Suetsugu.
Publication:
Taken together, Balanophora present a cluster of problems that creationism has no coherent way to resolve. These plants function perfectly well without photosynthesis, leaves, or roots, yet retain a highly modified plastid that is unmistakably derived from a chloroplast. From an evolutionary perspective this is entirely unremarkable: once photosynthesis was abandoned, only a small subset of plastid genes remained essential, and natural selection progressively stripped away everything else.
From a design perspective, however, the arrangement is inexplicably convoluted. If a designer merely wished these plants to possess a handful of indispensable genes, there would be no reason to sequester them in a specialised organelle at all, let alone one that bears every molecular hallmark of a repurposed and otherwise redundant chloroplast.
Matters are made worse for creationism by the clear evidence of horizontal gene transfer between Balanophora and their host plants. Genes involved in metabolism and parasitic function have been acquired directly from unrelated species, expanding the parasite’s genetic repertoire without any need for de novo creation. This directly contradicts the creationist assertion that genuinely new genetic material must be injected by an intelligent designer. In Balanophora, new functional capacity arises through borrowing, modification, and integration — precisely the mechanisms evolutionary biology predicts for organisms locked into intimate, long-term parasitic relationships.
Creationism is therefore forced into an increasingly over-engineered narrative: essential genes placed in an unnecessary organelle, organelles designed to resemble degraded chloroplasts for no functional reason, and additional genes mysteriously arriving by means indistinguishable from natural gene transfer. Evolution, by contrast, explains all of this effortlessly. It accounts for the losses, the constraints, the repurposing, and the acquisition of genes from external sources, all without invoking foresight or intent.
Balanophora do not merely challenge creationist claims about complexity and information; they expose their hollowness. These plants bear the unmistakable imprint of history, contingency, and descent with modification — features that no theory of intelligent design can accommodate without collapsing into ad hoc storytelling.
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