Parasites: A Gene Thief — Plants of the genus Rafflesia are among the oddest on the planet. They have the largest known flowers (up to a metre across) and are parasites, growing on South-East Asian vines of the genus Tetrastigma. The latest research, though, shows that Rafflesia take more than just nutrients from their hosts. A study by Charles Davis of Harvard and Joshua Rest of Stony Brook University, in New York, just published in BioMed Central Genomics, has shown that at least one species, Rafflesia cantleyi, has also snaffled 49 genes from its particular victim, Tetrastigma rafflesia (named, like Rafflesia itself, after Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore and of the London Zoo). The genes in question, which have a wide range of functions, are fully operational and have become integrated into the nuclei of cantleyi’s cells. Such gene transfer between species is common in bacteria, but rare in more complex organisms. Yet another curiosity, then, about an already curious vegetable.