Dodder: A Parasite of Other Plants

During summertime, long strands of yellow or orange string tend to form mats that seem to lie on top of other vegetation. The material most often is seen along rivers, creeks, and fields and looks like a wad of hay-string or fly-fishing line, or spaghetti. Actually, it is a plant that makes this mat.  

Due to the color and appearance, several other descriptive common names have been used for the plant, including devil’s hair, goldthread, love vine, strangle vine, and witch’s shoelaces. Dodder is a parasite of several kinds of host plants. Because some of these hosts are agricultural crop species, the plant is considered a pest that needs to be treated and removed. In other cases, the parasitism may occur on fast-growing plant species that tend to crowd out other plants, thus the parasitism limits the growth of the host and thereby increases diversity by allowing other plant species a chance to grow. Being an annual plant, the dodder always grows from seeds. A single plant can produce over 16,000 seeds, and those seeds can remain viable for over 60 years. Seeds germinate from the soil and grow until the seedling touches an acceptable host plant. The host plant should be within about 7.5 cm (3 inches) of the dodder sprout and should be found within about 10 days of germination, otherwise the dodder dies.