166 



Descriptive Flora 



sembling miniature morning glories. Leaves simple, alternate. 

 Blades y 2 to 1" long, linear to oblong, pointed at both ends, 

 covered with silky hairs below, glabrous above. Flowers solitary 

 on axillary thread-like pedicels, a little shorter than the sub- 

 tending leaves. Sepals 5. Corolla saucer-shaped, 5-angled, 

 about %" across. Stamens 5. Usually poor dry soil. March to 

 July. 



CUSCUTACEAE. Dodder Family. 



Cuscuta arvensis Beyr. Dodder. Love Vine. 



Strangle Weed. Gold Thread. 

 A slender, twining parasite that forms a tangle of orange 

 threads tying itself to weeds in vacant lots and waste places. 

 Flowers tiny, white, waxy, fleshy, bell-like, in massed clusters 

 at intervals along the curling, leafless, orange or yellow stems. 

 This plant twines around bluebonnets, pigweed, verbenas, vicia 

 and other plants, sometimes forming thick, orange-colored mats 

 in uncultivated ground. Plant starts from seed in the ground 

 but stem soon attaches itself to its host by minute disks that 

 sink into the tissues of the plant upon which it feeds. The true 

 roots shrivel and die causing the green plant to feed both itself 

 and the parasite. Indians used this as a dye-stuff by boiling 

 the vines and dipping the materials in the liquid. It is interest- 

 ing to note that while there are about 50 species of dodder, none 

 attack oats, wheat or other cereal crops. An interesting account 

 of dodder as a noxious weed is given in Farmer's Bulletin No. 

 1161, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



HYDROPHYLLACEAE. Waterleaf Family. 



HYDROLEACEAE. Waterleaf Family. In Small's Flora. 

 Nemophila phacelioides Nutt. Baby Blue Eyes 



Hairy, straggling annuals with weak spreading stems, lobed 

 leaves and pale blue flowers about 1" across, on slender pedicels, 

 iy 2 to 4" long, that branch out anywhere (except in the leaf- 

 axils) on the upper part of the stem. Petals 5, united at their 



