Cuscuta, better known as dodder, is a bane to gardeners. There are 150 species of this parasitic vine worldwide, but they're most likely to be found in North America. These plants grow as a messy tangle of spaghetti-like strands that can grow dense enough to completely wrap the plants they're infesting. Mostly lacking chlorophyll, dodder can be pale green, yellow, orange, or even red. If it has any leaves at all, they'll appear as little more than tiny stubs.
Dodder is part of the Convolvulaceae family of plants, which means it's related to morning glories and sweet potatoes. While sweet potatoes are best known for their roots though, dodder doesn't grow its roots into the ground. Once its seeds germinate in soil, a dodder sprout has just 5-10 days to find a host plant to attach to, or it will die. Once it grasps a host's stem, it wraps tightly around it and grows roots directly into the host's vascular system. Known as haustoria, these vampiric roots suck up the host's sap for nutrition as the dodder's vines entangle it further.
Dodder is weakly photosynthetic, but it seems like this is an evolutionary leftover. It doesn't produce enough energy on its own and can't survive without a host. Widely considered a pest species, farmers and gardeners alike go to great lengths to prevent dodder — once it takes hold of a host plant, infestations can be difficult to remove. Mercifully, as an annual, they don't survive the winter.
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