Orobanche ramosa is a parasitic plant lacking chlorophyll found in Europe, the Middle East, West Asia, North Africa, south of Ethiopia, and Somalia. New infestations are recorded in other countries such as Australia (Parker 2013). Its growth depends on its host for its mineral and water needs (Punia 2014), thus damaging the host crop’s growth and production. O. ramosa attacks several families of plants, such as Apiaceae, Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Fabaceae, and Solanaceae (Foy et al. 1989; Linke et al. 1989; Musselman 1980; Parker 2013). It causes yield damage that can reach 80% in tomato (Díaz et al. 2006) and 20 t/ha in cauliflower (Fracchiolla and Boari 2003). In Morocco, O. ramosa infestations were observed on different crops. For instance, it was reported on tomato at Abda region; on carrot at Abda, Sa？s, and Chaouia regions; and on lentil at Doukkala, Chaouia, and Sa？s regions (Zehhar 2003).

In September 2020, during a field survey in the province of Berrechid (central Morocco), located in the region of Casablanca-Settat (33°18′35.3″N, 7°22′30.4″W), we found several O. ramosa plants in Brassica rapa L. fields (Figs. 1 and 2) that had as previous cultivations carrots and legumes. We carefully uprooted B. rapa plants along with the parasitic plants from the infested field plots and examined the attachment between the host plants (B. rapa) and the parasitic plants (O. ramosa). The observed O. ramosa in these turnip fields were clearly branched at the lowest part of the stem, giving several white-cream pubescent ramifications with bracts as leaves. Each ramification carried several purple flowers. Each flower had two lips and consisted of five hairy purple petals with four joined sepals. The morphological identification showed that the parasitic plants found in these turnip fields were typical of the species O. ramosa according to several descriptions, such as “The Parasitic Weeds of the Orobanchaceae” (Parker 2013). This newly identified species of parasitic weed will be added to the list of enemies of the turnip crop in the Chaouia-Ouardigha region (north-central Morocco). To our knowledge, this is the first citation that O. ramosa has been reported on turnip in Morocco.