Five Angled Dodder (Nash Prairie Plants List)

Five Angled Dodder

Cuscuta pentagona

Summary ³

Cuscuta pentagona, the fiveangled dodder, is a parasitic plant which is placed in the family Convolvulaceae, but was formerly classified in the family Cuscutaceae. It is a parasite of a wide range of herbaceous plants but is most important as a pest of lucerne and other legumes.

Description ⁴

This parasitic vine is a summer annual up to several feet long that branches occasionally. The stems are yellow to orange, more or less terete, glabrous, and about 1 mm. across. These stems curl around the stems of suitable host plants, climbing upward and often smothering them. Sessile suckers (haustoria) occur along these stems at frequent intervals, causing them to have a warty or bumpy appearance. These suckers extract water and nutrients from the host plants. There are no leaves and this vine does not produce chlorophyll; it is totally dependent for survival on its host plants. As the vine continues to grow, dense clusters of 5-25 flowers are occasionally produced. Each flower is about 3 mm. across, consisting of a light green calyx with 5 lobes, a white corolla with 5 triangular or ovate-triangular lobes with incurved tips, 5 slightly exerted stamens, and a light green ovary with a pair of short styles and knobby stigmata. The glabrous calyx is short-campanulate (bell-shaped) and each lobe overlaps adjacent lobes slightly, sometimes forming ridges that provide the calyx with a 5-angled appearance (otherwise, it has a circular circumference). Individual calyx lobes are usually oval in shape, although sometimes they are slightly rhombic or ovate-triangular. While the calyx is usually light green on fresh flowers, sometimes it is cream-colored or pale yellow. Fertile anthers are up to 0.5 mm. in length and bright yellow, becoming light brown as they wither away. The pedicels of the flowers are light green, glabrous, and very short (0.5-2.0 mm. in length). These pedicels are initially terete and about 1 mm. across, but they may become swollen and angular as their flowers develop. Sometimes small single bracts occur at the bases of flower clusters, or at the bases of individual pedicels. The blooming period occurs from mid-summer to early fall, lasting about 1 month. The flowers are not noticeably fragrant; in the absence of cross-pollination, they are self-fertile. As the flowers continue to mature, their ovaries (developing seed capsules) swell in size, becoming 2-3 mm. across and subgloboid (depressed-globular) in shape. Immature seed capsules are light green, becoming yellowish orange as they begin to mature, and finally turning light brown to brown at full maturity. These capsules eventually split open irregularly to release their tiny seeds (up to 4 seeds per capsule). The seeds can spread to other areas by wind or water (particularly the latter). Individual seeds are 1.0-1.5 mm. in length, ovoid-angular in shape, and dull yellow to reddish brown. The seed surfaces are minutely pitted (requires 20x magnification or higher to see). While an elementary root system develops from a newly germinated seed, it soon withers away as the seedling becomes attached to a host plant.,

Sources and Credits

(c) Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/services/media.php?env=botany&irn=10287277
Adapted by Amber Leung from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuscuta_pentagona
(c) John Hilty, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/29441739

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