OF THE GENUS CUSCUTA. 
75 
I CuScutaz are found also on acrid or poisonous plants. I have seen them on Ranunculacece , on 
Euphorbias, on Cicuta and other TJmbelliferoe, on Rhus Toxicodendron, and others. I have seen them 
also, though sparingly and not very thrifty, oh Movwcotyledonece, — such Liliacece, Graminece, and 
others,.—and even on the siliceous epidermis of Equisetum. The fact is that, when once attached to 
a nursing stem, they throw out their branches and coil around any plant in the neigh¬ 
borhood, and strike their suckers into the tissue, and grow on anything that can furnish [459 (9)] 
them nourishment, even on their own branches and flowers. This is even the case with 
the most exclusive species, 0. Epilinum, which attaches itself to all the weeds growing in flax fields, 
and may be cultivated on Vida, Impatiens , and many other plants. Bich nourishment on succulent 
plants expands the organs, enlarges the flowers, increases the whole plant, and thus gives rise to 
varieties which at times have been distinguished as species. C. Epithymum in clover fields becomes 
what has been called C. Trifolii; C. Europcea on vetches, C. Video; C. Gronovii in shaded miry 
soil, on Saururus,C. Saururi ; the overgrown form of C. Africana is C. Capensis, etc. 
The haustoria (suckers) of Cuscuta deeply penetrate into the tissue of the nurse, and they, with 
parts of the stem imbedded in this tissue, are able to reproduce the plant after all external vestiges 
of the stem have been rubbed off. This the gardeners often have occasion to deplore in regard 
to a variety of C. Epithymum which has become a pest to some greenhouses in Europe. I have 
observed the same fact in different species which I have had under cultivation, especially in 
G. injlexa . 
The species of Cuscuta naturally arrange themselves in three large groups, distinguished by 
their styles and stigmata. 
1. Those with two equal styles and elongated stigmata. They are natives of the Old World, 
exclusively, and have rarely and only temporarily been introduced with cultivated plants into 
America. (0. Epilinum with flax into some of our Eastern States, and C. Europcea with vetches in 
Hayti.) They may be termed Cuscuta proper. ( Cuscuta and Epilinella, Pfeiffer, Bot. Zeitg. III. 
673; Cuscuta, Epilinella, and Succuta, DesM. Et. pp. 38-41.) 
2. Those with two unequal styles, and ahbrevialed, usually capitate, stigmaia. They abound in 
America and Oceanica, and in the southern and eastern parts of Asia; a few species even penetrate 
into western Asia and southern Europe, and a single species is found in southern Africa. Culti¬ 
vation has temporarily introduced one species into Europe (C. racemosa from Chili, under the name 
of C. suaveolens). This group may be comprised under the name of Grammica, — a genus established 
by Loureiro in his Flora Cochinchinensis, I. 212, on a species belonging here. (Engelmannia, 
Pfeiffer, Bot. Zeitg. III. 673, not Torrey and Gray, nor Klotzsch ; Pfeijferia, Buchinger Ann. 
Sc. Hat. IX. 88, not Salm-Dyck; Buchinger a, F. Schultz in Jahrb. Pharm. 1847; Cassutha, 
DesM. Et. 40; Grammica, DesM. Bull Soc. Bot. France, I. 295; Cuscutina, Pfeiffl Bot. Zeit. 1846 
p. 461.) 
3. Those with styles united entirely or partly, and with capitate, ovate, or conic stig - [460 (10)] 
mata. The species of this group, all distinguished by^their large size and thick stems, 
principally inhabit Asia; two extend into southern and eastern Europe; and two others are found 
in South Africa and southern North America. This group is Des Moulin’s (Et. 39) Monogynella, 
with a little altered character. 
The modifications in the form of the stigma and the dehiscence of the capsule furnish the basis 
for a further subdivision of the three principal groups. I will here only say that in Cuscuta proper 
the capsule is almost always circumscissile; in Grammica it is often so, but more commonly it 
remains closed; in Monogynella it is constantly circumscissile. 
The dead corolla covers the whole or the top of the capsule always, with a single exception 
(C. Africana), in the first; it is found on the top, or at the base of the capsule, in the second; and, 
if not deciduous, always on its top in the third group. 
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