Seasonal Wild Flowers

Latin name

Cuscuta epithymum

Other names

Common Dodder, Lesser Dodder

Family

Convolvulaceae

Flowering season

July to September

English distribution

It is found mainly in the South, the Southwest, the

Southeast and East Anglia.

For a map see the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland –

Dodder

Habitat

It grows on heaths, chalk downs and fixed dunes on a

range of herbs and small shrubs, but most commonly on

Heather, Gorse and Thyme. It is also found on arable

crops and field margins.

It is on the decline.

Description

Dodder is a native, annual or perennial, rootless, twining, 

parasitic herb.

The flowers are small (up to 4mm), bell-shaped and in

dense groups up to 1cm across.

They are white tinged with pink, slightly translucent and

scented. Individual flowers are 5-merous with small

sepals. 

The corolla has spreading triangular petals.

There are 5 stamens with white white filaments and

yellow anthers which darken with age.

There are 2 prominent, reddish, linear styles and

linear stigmas.

Leaves are few, small and like scales.

The stems are thin, red and attach to the host plant

by haustoria.

Dodder obtains all its nutrients from the host plants

by haustorial feeding. Howerver, recent research has

shown that it has also incorporated genetic material

from hostplants into its own genome

'Convergent horizontal gene transfer and cross-talk

of mobile nucleic acids in parasitic plants' Yang et al,

Nature Plants (2019).