THE CONVOLVULUS FAMILY 
55 
cluster, so making the whole flower-head smaller; the sepals are pointed, and are nearly as 
long as the corolla-tube ; the corolla-tube is inflated in flower, and the minute scales are fringed. 
All these species are most injurious, this one especially to flax, exclusively on which it is 
said to grow. The rapidity and luxuriance of their growth makes them dreaded enemies to 
the growers of the crops on which they feed, as in a week or two a small patch will have 
extended over several square yards, covering all the surrounding plants, into which they thrust 
their little suckers, with a tangled mass of green or red thread-like stems, bearing at intervals 
their round heads of beautiful white or flesh-coloured waxy little flowers, which, however, 
belie their beauty and testify to their parasitic habits in the unpleasant smell they emit. 
Not a native. Introduced into England where flax is cultivated. July — August. Annual. 
3. Lesser Dodder. (Cuscuta Epith'ymum. Murray.)— A similar species to the 
Greater Dodder (Cuscuta europaea), but somewhat more delicate and smaller ; the flower-heads are 
similar in their compactness and roundness, but they are smaller, and the individual flowers are 
only about half as large and are white tinged with pink ; the sepals are pointed and red, shorter 
than the corolla-tube ; the lobes of the corolla-limb are pointed and spreading, and the scales in 
the tube are very large, fringed, incurved, nearly closing the tube, and almost concealing the 
seedcase, just separated from one another by narrow acute spaces ; the stamens and 2 stigmas 
protrude slightly. The stems are thread-like and red and are much finer than those of the 
Greater Dodder (Cuscuta europaea), though it is the large scales which at once distinguish this 
from the preceding species. [Plate 20. 
Not uncommon. A parasite found on gorse, heath, and thyme throughout England and on into 
southern Scotland; not recorded from Ireland. July — October. Annual. 
4. *ci0vep Dodder. (Cuscuta Trifolii. Babington.) — A very similar species to the 
last, the Lesser Dodder (Cuscuta Epithymum), and by some botanists considered probably as 
a variety. It has larger flowers and flower-heads ; the sepals are only tipped with red ; the scales 
separated widely from one another by rounded cup-like spaces; and the stems form much 
closer coils, strangling and killing the clover, whereas the Lesser Dodder may be seen fo 
years on the same bushes of gorse and heather and doing them comparatively little harm, which 
fact is, however, probably due to the strong herbaceous stems of these plants. 
Not a native. Introduced with clover, upon which it chiefly preys. July — September. AnnuaL 
