365 Urban Species. #211: Dodder

[urbpan]

Photos by cottonmanifesto. Location: Olmsted Park, Boston.

Urban species #211: Dodder Cuscuta gronovii

Like Indian pipe, dodder is a plant without chlorophyll, a self-contradictory organism, but a quite successful one. Dodder--orange not green--parasitizes other plants. It sprouts alongside a potential host, and quickly twines around it, drawing nutrients until it no longer needs its own roots. With no leaves, and a ropy growth habit, dodder resembles spaghetti wrapped about the victim of its attention. It doesn't cause the death of its host, at least not until the dodder has produced its tiny waxy flowers, and then its seeds.

There are many species of dodder, including some that are host-specific, and others, that are generalists. They can be difficult to tell apart from one another, without an expert's training and a hand lens to examine the flowers. Dodder's presence in the city is dependent primarily on the presence of appropriate host plants.


Take that, purple loosestrife!

Comments

[featheredfrog.livejournal.com]

I don't know how many have explicitly said this, but I greatly appreciate and always look forward to your posts on this project. It really brightens my day, and I almost always learn something.

Pull the book together, and I'll buy one!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I really appreciate it. I'll work on getting it (in some version or another) put together...

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

that reminds me, some loosestrife is sprouting around my pond, when i go on my next walk, it's getting uprooted and dumpstered. die die die.

#

[momomom.livejournal.com]

Battle of the titans!

[plantgirl.livejournal.com]

Dodder dodder dodder! It's such a cool plant, and it's fun to say, too! I'm also fond of snow plant (http://www.blingo.com/images?q=%22snow%20plant%22).

[nutmeg.livejournal.com]

YAY!!! My favorite non-synthesizer!

You promised and delivered.

Yech.. so creepy.

[g-weir.livejournal.com]

That's crazy.. it's like Phillip K. Dick got to make up some plants...

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

In one of those weird synchronistic sort of moments, I stared at this post. I was just reading about dodder last night. (The book is called 'My Weeds: a Gardener's Botany' by Sara B. Stein, and it's very interesting.)

So it was rather shocking to see a plant I had only just learned about illustrated so aptly. And yay! for parasitizing Purple Loosestrife.

-- side note --

Just to make everyone's life more interesting, the garden trade has introduced a Lysimachia called 'purple (http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1322/).' Lysimachia is not related to what we typically call Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), but it is also commonly called 'loosestrife' - See Lysimachia clethroides (http://www.bluestem.ca/perennials-lysimachia-clethroides.htm).

Soooo... if somebody tells you they have loosestrife in their garden, take a deep breath and ask 'Which kind?'