CLOVER-DODDER. 
789 
It is not a native of Britain, but occurs in Southern 
Europe, and as it is not so extensively used as colchicum, 
with which it possesses so many properties in common, we 
may, perhaps, he thankful that our meadows are not infested 
hy both these highly poisonous plants. 
CLOVER-DODDER, AND ITS SUPPOSED MEDI- 
CINAL PROPERTIES. 
By the Same. 
The plant bearing clusters of white blossoms and entwined 
around the stems of clover and some sainfoin, is the Clover 
Dodder, Cuscuta Trifolii. It is a foreign form of a very 
delicate species of flowering plants belonging to the elegant 
natural order, Convolvulacea , to which belong also the bind- 
weeds, jalaps, &c. 
It is found increasingly abundant in our clover crops, 
where it occurs in rounded patches of sickly-looking twining 
fibres which are studded over with bunches of delicately 
formed flowers, succeeded by dark brown seeds a little larger 
than those of chickweed. I have been thus particular in these 
facts because farmers entertain the notion that dodder is pro- 
duced other than from seed, and though they cannot express 
their meaning plainly they believe that it is developed spon- 
taneously and is, as they say, “ natural to the crop, or natural 
to the soil.” 
On sowing some of the dodder seeds by themselves it will 
soon be seen that they send up a delicate germinal-thread 
which early withers and dies ; but if sown with some clover 
seed this thread quickly gets attached to the clover, and its 
parasitic nature then begins somewhat on the plan shown in 
the following diagram, but slightly magnified. 
1. Dodder seed. 
2. Ditto, germinated. 
3. Germinal thread, on the look-out as it were for a foster-parent. 
4. Germinal thread withering, in consequence of not finding a foster- 
parent. 
