How to Grow and Care for Dodder

Japanese dodder is a parasitic vine with slender, twining stems that lack chlorophyll, giving it a yellow or orange appearance. Its small, bell-shaped flowers are white or pale pink, and it invades host plants, drawing nutrients through haustoria. Thriving in various environments, japanese dodder can severely affect agricultural crops by siphoning essential resources, leading to reduced yields.

Clover dodder is a parasitic plant which adopts a range of hosts, including crop plants, and is prohibited entry by many countries. ‘Parasite of Orchards’ is the name given to it in Pakistan. Clover dodder is an annual herb which attracts Gatekeeper butterflies.

Chaparral dodder (Cuscuta californica) is a parasitic vining plant that is native to western North America. Like other species of dodder, it is often considered a noxious weed that can interfere with local agriculture, particularly cash crops like alfalfa and flax. The plant has been used traditionally in Chinese medicine.

Growing mostly in temperate forest habitats, this parasitic plant grows throughout all of North America and has been naturalized in several European countries. The common hosts of scaldweed are spotted touch-me-not, false nettle, wood nettle, square-stemmed monkeyflower, and ditch stonecrop. Scaldweed has normal roots, but the suckers penetrate into a host and take its nutrients.

Fiveangled dodder is a parasitic plant that is widespread across North America. At maturity, the plant consists only of thread-like stems and small white flowers that turn into tiny fruits. It has no root system and is completely dependent on the host plant. Unlike most Cuscuta pentagona, the fiveangled dodder is not a specialized parasite and can utilize a wide range of herbaceous plant species.