_Cuscuta Gronovii_
_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. So firmly are these suckers
attached, that the golden thread-like stem will break before they can be
torn from their hold.
Not a leaf now remains on the vine to tell of virtue in its remote
ancestors; the absence of green matter (chlorophyll) testifies to
dishonest methods of gaining a living (see Indian Pipe), not even a root
is left after the seedling is old enough to twine about its
hard-working, respectable neighbors. Starting out in life with
apparently the best intentions, suddenly the tender young twiner
develops an appetite for strong drink and murder combined, such as would
terrify any budding criminal in Five Points or Seven Dials! No sooner
has it laid hold of its victim and tapped it, than the now useless root
and lower portion wither away leaving the dodder in mid-air, without any
connection with the soil below, but abundantly nourished with juices
already stored up, and even assimilated, at its host’s expense. By
rapidly lengthening the cells on the outer side of its stem more than on
the inner side, the former becomes convex, the latter concave; that is
to say, a section of spiral is formed by the new shoot, which, twining
upward, devitalizes its benefactor as it goes. Abundant, globular
seed-vessels, which develop rapidly while the blossoming continues
unabated, soon sink into the soft soil to begin their piratical careers
close beside the criminals which bore them; or better still, from their
point of view, float downstream to found new colonies afar. When the
beautiful jewel-weed--a conspicuous sufferer--is hung about with
dodder, one must be grateful for at least such symphony of yellows.