CONVOLVULACE^E. 89 



SPECI ES I.— C U S C U T A EPILINUM. Weihe 



Plate DCCCCXXVI. 



Saeh. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XVIII. Tab. MCCCXLII. Fig. 3. 



Billot, Fl. Gal), et Germ. Exsicc. No. 193G. 



Q densiflora, Soy.-Villm. Or. & Godr. Fl. de Fr. Vol. II. p. 503. Reich, fd. 1. c. 



Stems simple or very slightly branched, greenish-yellow. 

 Flowers sessile, in very compact globular heads. Calyx-segments 

 fleshy, setni-transparent, adpressed, deltoid-acuminate. Corolla 

 scarcely exceeding the calyx ; tube inflated at the time of flower- 

 ing; limb erect, half the length of the tube ; lobes deltoid, slightly 

 spreading, obtuse ; scales very minute, adpressed, fringed with teeth, 

 distant, with rounded spaces between them. Stamens included. 

 Styles 2, filiform, divergent, not half the length of the ovary ; 

 stigmas sub-oblong. Seeds roughened. 



Parasitical on flax. It has occurred in flax-fields in various 

 places, but introduced with foreign seed and not persistent in any 

 locality. 



[England, Scotland, Ireland.] Annual. Late Summer 

 and Autumn. 



Stem twining round the flax-plants, with heads of about the 

 size of peas, containing 6 to 12 flowers, which are of a greenish- 

 white colour, sessile, and without bracts at the base of the 

 individual flower ; but the head has generally a scarious bract at 

 the base of its very short peduncle. Calyx whitish ; segments 

 erect, keeled. Scales varying slightly in size, one below each 

 stamen, bifid, fimbriated at the apex, their tips not reaching to the 

 base of the stamen. Styles at first erect, afterwards spreading. 



Flax Dodder. 



French, Cuscute etrangle Lin. German, Flachs Seide. 



Dr. Prior gives us the etymology of the word Dodder as the plural of dodd, a 

 bunch — dot, a hampered thread, from its striking resemblance to bunches of threads 

 entangled in the plants on which it grows. The species are all true parasites, fixing 

 themselves on the branches of woody or other plants ; twisting round them, striking a 

 number of minute suckers down on their bark, and thus attracting from the system of 

 the plants, and from the air, the sustenance necessary to their own support. They 

 do not, however, like the mistletoe, plunge their roots into the wood and incorporate 

 themselves with the tissue. The species of which we now write attacks the crop of 

 flax, and is very injurious to it. By French cultivators, the Dodders are called 

 Teigne, Rache, Perruque, &c, and are much dreaded in fields of leguminous plants, 

 upon which they multiply with singular rapidity. It is difficult to guard against them, 

 on account of the rapidity of their vegetation and the facility with which they pass 



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