As a botanist and conservation biologist I have a passion for the world of plants, in particular the weird and wonderful species that can be found here in the south-west of Australia. I am also a keen Botanical artist working mostly on depicting our native flora through watercolour and pen work. I got my degree in Conservation and Wildlife Biology at ECU and my masters in biology at UWA, looking at the plant immune system, in particular looking at a group of gene termed resistance genes that aid in the plants immune response to invading pathogens. This later inspired my PhD project for which I am working on now. My project revolves around the biology of Pilostyles, a strange parasitic plant that has forgone the usual things one may think of when looking at a plant and lives a more cryptic lifestyle within stems of its host. I am focused on understanding the interaction it with its hosts at both an ecological level and a genetic level. Here I will be running through my project, introducing this strange and unique plant, what is it, why is it important and why we should care about observing parasitic plants, with a focus on the work I have been carrying out along the Darling Scarp.