Cuscuta. CONYOLYULACE.E. • 535 



3. CUSCUTA, Tourn. Dodder. 

 (By Dr. George Engelmaxx.) 

 Calyx 5- (sometimes 4-) cleft or parted. Corolla campanulate or short-tubular, 

 the spreading limb 5 — 4-parted, between convolute and imbricated in the bud, not 

 plaited. Stamens mostly furnished with a scale-like fringed appendage below their 

 insertion in the throat. Ovary globose, 2-celled, 4-ovuled. Styles in all our species 

 2, distinct. Capsule 1 — 4-seeded, circumscissile (bursting transversely), or mostly 

 baccate. Embryo filiform, spirally coiled in the (when dry) hard-fleshy albumen, 

 destitute of cotyledons, sometimes furnished at the upper part with a few alter- 

 nate scales (belonging to the plumule), germinating in the soil, but not rooting 

 in it, developing into filiform and branching annual stems of a yellowish or reddish 

 hue, which become parasitic on the bark of herbs or small shrubs, being attached 

 by means of suckers at the whole surface of contact (the base soon dying away), 

 twining extensively, bearing occasional small scales in the place of leaves. Flowers 

 small, cymose or densely clustered, white or whitish, usually produced late in the 

 season. — Engelm. in Anier. Jour. Sci. 184-2, & Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci. (1859) 

 L L53. 



A widely distributed genus of nearly 80 species, divided into three subgenera ; the first, /' 

 rith distinct styles and elongated stigmas, and circumscissile capsule), indigenous exclu- 

 sively to the Old World, although the injurious Flax-Dodder lias been introduced with flax-seed 



into the New; the sec 1 and largest, i (with distinct styles and capitate stigmas), 



belonging principally to the New; the third and smallest, Atonogyna (with styles united into 

 oni i. scattered over the whole globe. The Californian species are all of the section Clistogram- 

 mica, having capitate stigmas and a baccate or indehiscent capsule. The following species, 

 Datives of Arizona or Utah, are not unlikely to reach California : — 

 C. TENiriFLORA, Engelm. and C. obtusiflora, HBE., both with closed or baccate capsule : 

 C. aiti.axata, Engelm., C. odostolef-is, Engelm., and C. umbellata, HBE., with capsule 

 opening regularly round the base. 



* Capsule ilpressed-globose. 



1. C. arvensis, Bey-rich. Stems capillary: flowers small (about a line long), 

 in small umbel-like cymes, pedicellate: tube of the broad-campanulate corolla 

 included in the broadly lobed calyx, as long as or rather shorter than its ovate- 

 lanceolate inflexed pointed lob scales large, broadly oval, deeply fringed: styles 

 shorter than the large depressed ovary: capsule depressed-globose, girl at the 

 base by the persistent corolla: seeds 4. — Engelm. in Gray, .Man. ed. 2, 336, 

 & ed. 5, 378. 



Long Valley, Mondocino Co., Kellogg. Not rare from the Middle Atlantic States to Texas, 

 but thus far found only once in California. 



2. C. Californica, I'ludsy, and Hook. ov Ant. Steins capillaxy; flowers small 

 or middle sized, pedicelled in loose few-flowered cymes: lobes of the calyx acute: 

 lobes of the corolla lanceolate-subulate, as long as or longer than the shallow cam- 

 panulate tube: filaments mostly as long as the linear-oblong anthers: .-.ales none, 

 or sometimes indicated by rudimentary inverted arches near the base of the tube : 

 ovary small, mostly depressed, with slender styles ; capsule depressed. — DC. Prodr. 

 i\. 157. —The extreme forms are : 



Var. breviflora, Engelm. Flowers scarcely more than a line long: calyx I 



acuminate, equalling or surpassing the tul f the corolla : filaments and anthers 



short : styles as long as il vary : corolla withering at base of or around the 2- I 



I capsule. — Engelm. in Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci. 1. c 199. 



Var longiloba, Engelm. I. c. Flowers longer-pedicclled, 1 .'. to -.'. lines long: 

 calyx lobes short, or s itimes long and acuminate and even recurved at tip : lobes 



