Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine

General: Annual, parasitic vine, twining, thread-like stem, yellow-green, glabrous..

Leaves: None to scale like, generally triangular to lanceolate

Flowers: 3-5 mm, calyx 1-2 mm, lobes 5, not overlapped; corolla generally persistent, 3-4.5 mm, shallowly bell-shaped, tube generally shorter than wide, 5 lobes, triangular, erect, tips incurved, superior ovary.

Fruits: Capsule, ovoid-spheric 3-4 mm, sometimes glandular.

Ecology: Found on herbaceous plants in moist fields and on roadsides below 5,000 ft (1524 m).

Notes: Recently treated as part of Convolvulaceae (1998). This species is hosted by Acacia, Prosopis, Condalia, Datura, Solidago, Hymenoclea, and Baccharis among others.

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, while indecora means unattractive.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley, 2010

Fls 5-merous, short-pedicellate in loose to compact glomerules; cal-lobes triangular, acute or somewhat obtuse, shorter than to about equaling the broad cor- tube; cor-lobes broadly triangular, erect or ascending, usually shorter than the tube, acute with inflexed tip; styles 0.5-1.5 mm; stigma capitate; fr depressed-globose, enveloped by the withered, calyptrate cor, evidently thickened around the styles, which appear to be set in a shallow pit surrounded by a collar; seeds mostly 4; 2n=30. On a wide variety of hosts; Ill. to N.D., w. to Calif., s. to Fla. and S. Amer.

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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