Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Parasitic annual, stem yellow to purplish, viscid-pubescent, 10-35 cm tall, solitary or clustered.

Leaves: Reduced, 5-10 mm long, cauline and scalelike.

Flowers: Spikelike racemes, with pedicels to 10 mm long; calyx 8-12 mm long, lobes narrowly lanceolate, unequal and longer than tube; corolla purplish, 15-20 mm long, lobes narrowed and acute at the apex, upper lip erect, 6-8 mm long, lower lip with a prominent purple vein.

Fruits: Capsule generally as long as sepals.

Ecology: Found in sandy soils from 4,000-7,000 ft (1219-2134 m); flowers May-September.

Distribution: ID, WY, UT, CO, AZ, NM, s KS, OK, TX, MO; south to n MEX.

Notes: Distinguished by its yellowish-purple color and reduced leaves; can be told apart from O. fasciculata by being taller and having shorter pedicels; similar in appearance to Conopholis alpina but it has fewer leaves and is less robust.

Ethnobotany: Used on wounds, the sprouts and roots were baked and eaten, and used against infections.

Etymology: Orobanche is from Greek orobos, a kind of vetch, and anchone, choke or strangle because of the parasitic nature of the genus, while ludoviciana means of for from Louisiana.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015

Parasitic on many kinds of plants, especially Artemisia and other Asteraceae; plants 1-3 dm, simple or rarely branched, with numerous appressed scale-lvs; spikes many- fld, dense, forming 1/3 to 2/3 of the shoot; fls mostly sessile or the lower on erect pedicels to 15 mm; cal subtended by (1)2 bractlets, as well as by a bract, bilabiate, the upper lip with a single lobe, the lower with 4; cal-lobes linear, 8-12 mm; cor often purplish, 1.5-2.5 cm; 2n=24, 48, 72, 96. Chiefly in sandy soil; Ill. and Ind. to Sask. and Tex., w. to Calif. and n. Mex. June-Aug. Our plants are var. ludoviciana. (Myzorrhiza l.)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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