A dodder plant begins its life looking like a tapeworm. The tiny plant, which will never grow leaves or roots, elongates in a spindly spiral. Round and round it swirls, searching for a host plant.

The plant genus Cuscuta consists of more than 200 species that can be found almost all over the world. The parasites, known as dodder, but also called wizard's net, devil's hair or strangleweed, feed ...

Jim Westwood, professor of plant pathology, physiology, and weed science, examines dodder, a parasitic plant with a covert weaponry system. Research at Virginia Tech and Penn State that has revealed ...

About 4,000-5,000 parasitic plant species exist. Among these, dodders (Cuscuta, Convolvulaceae) are distributed worldwide. Compared with normal autotrophic plants, they have a unique morphology - they ...

Dodder is an obligate parasite of certain plants. This unusual member of the morning glory family is also known as “Angel’s Hair” and “Strangle Weed.” Like Indian pipe, another parasitic plant, Dodder ...

Most plants produce flowers when their leaves detect environmental cues that indicate the time is right. Parasitic dodder plants cheat. These plants don’t have leaves or roots of their own. Instead, ...

Field dodder is an obligatory stem and leaf plant parasite that causes significant damage in field and vegetable crops in all agricultural regions of the globe. Selective and effective measures to ...

One of my traveler friends sent me a photo of her flowers invaded by a strange, almost alien-type growth. A yellow, spaghetti-like plant called dodder seemed to come from nowhere and entangled her ...

Maintaining your garden takes hard work and dedication. When it is well cared for, it produces glorious flowers and organic bounties. However, weeds can still find a way in -- even invasive ones, like ...

A plant nursery had sold seeds and seedlings that could be contaminated with a parasitic vine. Aberfeldy Nurseries said it had sold 44 packets of imported seeds, which may contain the dodder parasite, ...

A parasitic plant has found a way to circumvent an evolutionary arms race with its hosts, allowing the parasite to thrive on a variety of agriculturally important plants. A parasitic plant has found a ...

Researchers have investigated how the parasitic dodder Cuscuta australis controls flower formation. They showed that the parasite eavesdrops on the flowering signals of its host plants in order to ...