This underground plant in South Africa is truly one of the strangest plants on Earth. Despite its crazy appearance, it is actually selling popularly in the arid regions of South Africa.
Source: Pojok Populer
It belongs to a root parasite, Hydnora africana, which lives in Euphorbia. Hydnora, from Africa, belongs to a family, the family Hydnoraceae which also includes the New World genus, Prosopanche. Their relationships are rather uncertain, but recent molecular data suggest that the family Hydnoraceae is a “bottom angiosperm”, among the more primitive flowering plants. Parasites are often so highly variable, compared with their non-parasitic relatives, that their relationship is difficult to determine.
The only part of Hydnora that appears above the ground is the upper part of the flower. Most of the flowers are below the surface of the soil. The flowers are thick and succulent. The aboveground floral part is tubular and has three holes, one of which is shown here. There are three thick structures, botanically known as the perianth segments, and which can be likened to the sepals, which tend to be united in the upper part of the flower.