RINGWORM, OR DODDER. 21 



This troublesome weed ( Cuscuta epithymum) in some respects 

 resembles mistletoe, and in others, dodder laurel (Gassytha) but 

 it differs from the former in not plunging its roots into the wood 

 and incorporating them with the tissue of plants ; and it differs 

 from the latter in being a much more thread-like parasite, the 

 seeds of which are destitute of cotyledons. The germination of 

 the dodder is curious. Its slender and simple radicle descends 

 into the earth ; and the plumule, equally simple and cylindrical, 

 rises like a thread : if it finds no other living plant near it, it 

 dies ; if it finds one, it surrounds the stem, and from the points 

 of contact proceed hollow tubercles or suckers, which plant 

 themselves in the bark and suck the juice which has been 

 elaborated by the plant attacked ; then the root becomes obliter- 

 ated and dies, and the plant lives from that time forward by its 

 suckers only. The species of our Gassytha or dodder laurel 

 (these plants being placed by botanists in the laurel family), are 

 sometimes mistaken for dodder, but they are much coarser plants, 

 and generally grow on shrubs or trees, sometimes forming dense 

 and almost inpenetrable masses in our scrubs. The species 

 described by Brown are C. pubescens, C. melantka, C. glabella, and 

 C. paniculata, two of which may frequently be seen in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Sydney, and the fruit of them is well known to 

 boys. These plants are leafless, voluble, and parasitical, and in 

 their habit they resemble the true dodder, for after they have 

 fixed themselves on any shrub, their root perishes, and they live 

 by means of the small protuberances or suckers which they form 

 on other plants. The true Australian dodders are placed by 

 Brown in the convolvulus family, and, like the European species, 

 are acotyledonous. That celebrated botanist describes two 

 species, C. Australis and C. carinata, both of which he considered 

 tropical ; but since his day, they have been found in this colony, 

 though somewhat sparingly, and generally adhering to some 

 Polygonum growing near water. The species, however, which 

 our farmers have the principal reason to dread, is G. epithymwn, 

 an introduced plant, now committing considerable injury amongst 

 the lucerne at Bathurst and other parts. Lucerne (Medicago 

 sativd) is not a favourite with English farmers, for although it 

 will produce good crops for eight or ten years successively, yet 

 from the time the farmer must wait till his crop attains its per- 



