GRONOVIUS' or COMMON DODDER; STRANGLE-WEED; LOVE VINE; ANGEL'S
HAIR
(Cuscuta gronovii) Dodder family
Flowers - Dull white, minute, numerous, in dense clusters. Calyx
inferior, greenish white, 5-parted; corolla bell-shaped, the 5
lobes spreading, 5 fringed scales within; 5 stamens, each
inserted on corolla throat above a scale; 2 slender styles. Stem:
Bright orange yellow, thread-like, twining high, leafless.
Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, meadows, ditches, beside streams.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Nova Scotia and Manitoba, south to the Gulf
States.
Like tangled yellow yarn wound spirally about the herbage and
shrubbery in moist thickets, the dodder grows, its beautiful
bright threads plentifully studded with small flowers tightly
bunched. Try to loosen its hold on the support it is climbing up,
and the secret of its guilt is out at once; for no honest vine is
this, but a parasite, a degenerate of the lowest type, with
numerous sharp suckers (haustoria) penetrating the bark of its
victim, and spreading in the softer tissues beneath to steal all
their nourishment.
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