Common Name: MORNING-GLORY FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, subshrub, generally twining or trailing. Leaf: 0 or alternate. Inflorescence: cyme or flowers 1 in axils; bracts subtending flowers 0 or 2. Flower: bisexual, radial; sepals (4)5, +- free, overlapping, persistent, often unequal; corolla generally showy, generally bell-shaped, +- shallowly 5-lobed, generally pleated and twisted in bud; stamens 5, epipetalous; pistil 1, ovary superior, chambers generally 2, each generally 2-ovuled, styles 1--2. Fruit: generally capsule. Seed: 1--4(6).
Genera In Family: 55--60 genera, 1600--1700 species: warm temperate to tropics; some cultivated for food or as ornamental (Ipomoea). Note: Monophyletic only if Cuscutaceae included, as treated here. Ipomoea cairica (L.) Sweet, Ipomoea hederacea Jacq. [Ipomoea nil L., misappl.], Ipomoea indica (Burm.) Merr. (including Ipomoea mutabilis Ker Gawl.), Ipomoea purpurea (L.) Roth, Ipomoea triloba L., all included in TJM (1993), not naturalized.
eFlora Treatment Author: Robert E. Preston, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Thomas J. Rosatti.

Common Name: DODDER
Habit: Vine, annual (perennial herb if on perennial host), not in contact with ground, attached to, holoparasitic on host by many small, specialized roots (haustoria) along stem, generally glabrous. Stem: thread-like, +- green, yellow, orange, or +- red. Leaf: 0 or scale-like, alternate, +- 2 mm. Inflorescence: generally cyme, head- to panicle-like (flowers 1), subtended by 0--3 bracts. Flower: bisexual, radial, parts generally in 4s or 5s; calyx generally divided 2/5--3/5, persistent, generally +- cream-white; corolla generally +- white, persistent (withered in fruit) or not, tube cup-shaped to cylindric, bulged or horizontally ridged below lobes or generally not, generally with scales subtending stamens, lobes alternate stamens, erect to reflexed; ovary superior, chambers 2, each 2-ovuled, styles 2, generally free, persistent, stigmas 2, generally spheric, persistent. Fruit: capsule, generally indehiscent to irregularly dehiscent (or circumscissile near base), spheric to ovoid, depressed or not, thickened and/or raised around generally inconspicuous opening between styles or not. Seed: 1--4; coat papillate when hydrated, honeycombed when dry, (rarely neither, with cells +- rectangular, in +- jigsaw-puzzle-like arrangement); embryo generally slender, 1--3-coiled.
Etymology: (Aramaic, Hebrew; from the verb K-S-Y (Kaph, Shin, Yodh), to cover, from habit) Note: By persistent, withered corolla, fruit may be "capped" (corolla on top of fruit), "surrounded" (fruit at least in part visible, corolla +- loosely around fruit), or "enclosed" (fruit not visible, corolla +- tightly around fruit). Cuscuta pentagona Engelm. excluded.
eFlora Treatment Author: Mihai Costea & Saša Stefanović
Reference: Costea & Stefanovic 2009 Syst Bot 34:570--579
Unabridged Reference: Costea et al. 2005 Brittonia 57:264--272; Costea et al. 2006 Sida 22:151--175, 177--195, 197--207, 209--225; Costea & Stefanovic 2009. Cuscuta jepsonii (Convolvulaceae), an invasive weed or an extinct endemic? Amer J Bot 96:1744--1750; Costea et al. 2009. Untangling the systematics of salt marsh dodders: Cuscuta pacifica a new segregate species from Cuscuta salina (Convolvulaceae). Syst Bot 34:787--795; Costea & Stefanovic. 2009. Molecular phylogeny of Cuscuta californica complex (Convolvulaceae) and a new species from New Mexico and Trans-Pecos. Syst Bot 34:570--579; Costea & Tardif 2006 Canad J Pl Sci 86:293--316

Common Name: GOLDENTHREAD
Inflorescence: umbel- to +- head-like, flowers 2--17; pedicels 0.5--2 mm. Flower: 3.5--6 mm, membranous, papillate or not, parts in 5s; calyx generally = corolla tube, bell- to cup-shaped, generally divided 1/3, not veined, not shiny, lobes ovate-triangular, bases +- overlapped, margins entire, tip acute to acuminate; corolla tube 1.5--2.6 mm, bell-shaped, scales 1/2--2/3 corolla tube, oblong, rounded, short-fringed, lobes spreading to erect, generally = tube, widely ovate, margins entire, tip acute to acuminate, straight; filaments 0.3--0.6 mm, anthers included, 0.35--0.5 mm, widely elliptic to +- round; styles 0.4--1 mm, generally < ovary. Fruit: 2--3.6 mm, 1.4--2.1 mm wide, elliptic-ovoid, +- thickened, +- raised around opening between styles, not translucent, surrounded or capped by corolla. Seed: 1--2, 1.45--1.95 mm, 1.25--1.43 mm wide, +- spheric to widely elliptic.