Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine

General: Parasitic perennial forb with slender but profuse stems, twining or trailing, yellow-orange

Leaves: Reduced to scales or not present.

Flowers: Glabrous or slightly puberulent, 4-6 mm long, pentamerous, on pedicels 2-8 mm long, forming dense compound cymes; calyx turbinate, lobes as long as or longer than campanulate corolla, acute to acuminate; corolla lobes equal corolla tube, oblong to lancolate, acute to acuminate, usually reflexed; campanulate corolla almost colorless, whitish. 

Fruits: Depressed-globose capsule, with ring of low, road, rounded tubercules about intrastylar aperture, circumscissile, whithering corolla in fruit.

Ecology: Found on various hosts, mostly herbaceous.

Distribution: AZ, CO, NM, TX, KS, LO; south to S. Amer.

Notes: Parasitic on Polygonum, Atriplex, Suaeda, Alternanthera, Amaranthus, Boerhaavia, Trianthema, Kallstroemia, Tribulus, and Euphorbia.

Ethnobotany: Unknown for this species, but other species in this genera have many uses.

Etymology: Cuscuta is the name of an Arabic derivation meaning dodder, umbellata refers to the form of the flowers.

Synonyms: Cuscuta umbellata var. reflexa, Grammica umbellata

Editor: SBuckley 2010, FSCoburn 2015