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Cuscuta californica

CHAPARRAL DODDER


Higher Taxonomy
Family: ConvolvulaceaeView DescriptionDichotomous Key
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.
Genus: CuscutaView DescriptionDichotomous Key


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
Cuscuta californica Hook. & Arn.
NATIVE
Inflorescence: head- to panicle-like, flowers 3--20; pedicels (0.5)1--2.5(3) mm. Flower: 3--5(5.5) mm, papillate or not, parts in 5s; calyx 3/4 to = corolla tube, bell-shaped, generally divided 1/2--2/3, not veined, shiny when membranous, not shiny when fleshy, lobes triangular to lanceolate, bases overlapped, margins entire, tip acute to acuminate; corolla tube 1.6--2.4 mm, bell-shaped, bulged below lobes or not, scales 0, lobes erect, reflexed in age, >= tube, narrowly lanceolate, margins entire, tips acute to acuminate, straight; anthers exserted, 0.6--1 mm, oblong to linear; styles 1.2--2.2 mm, >= ovary. Fruit: 1.5--2.2 mm, 1.2--2.5 mm wide, spheric or ovoid-conic, tip pointed or not, not thickened or raised around opening between styles, not translucent, +- enclosed by corolla (top barely visible). Seed: 1--4, 0.9--1.3 mm, 0.8--1.1 mm wide, widely elliptic to obovate.

Jepson eFlora Author: Mihai Costea & Saša Stefanović
Reference: Costea & Stefanovic 2009 Syst Bot 34:570--579
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)

Previous taxon: Cuscuta brachycalyx
Next taxon: Cuscuta californica var. apiculata


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Citation for this treatment: Mihai Costea & Saša Stefanović 2012, Cuscuta californica, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=21422, accessed on December 03, 2024.

Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on December 03, 2024.

Cuscuta californica  
var. californica
click for image enlargement
©2016 Keir Morse
Cuscuta californica  
var. papillosa
click for image enlargement
©2012 Neal Kramer
Cuscuta californica  
var. papillosa
click for image enlargement
©2003 Keir Morse
Cuscuta californica  
var. papillosa
click for image enlargement
©2016 Keir Morse
Cuscuta californica  
var. papillosa
click for image enlargement
©2016 Keir Morse

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Geographic subdivisions for Cuscuta californica:
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map of distribution 1

(Note: any qualifiers in the taxon distribution description, such as 'northern', 'southern', 'adjacent' etc., are not reflected in the map above, and in some cases indication of a taxon in a subdivision is based on a single collection or author-verified occurrence).






 

Data provided by the participants of the  Consortium of California Herbaria.

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All markers link to CCH specimen records. The original determination is shown in the popup window.
Blue markers indicate specimens that map to one of the expected Jepson geographic subdivisions (see left map). Purple markers indicate specimens collected from a garden, greenhouse, or other non-wild location.
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CCH collections by month Flowering-Fruiting Monthly Counts

Duplicates counted once; synonyms included.
Species do not include records of infraspecific taxa, if there are more than 1 infraspecific taxon in CA.
Blue line denotes eFlora flowering time (fruiting time in some monocot genera).