Flora-Fauna

Cuscuta campestris Yunck.

(First published in Mem. Torrey Bot. Club 18: 138; 1932, nom. cons.)

• Life-form & habit: Leafless, holoparasitic climber with filamentous, twining stems, not capillary but very slender. Stems usually numerous, forming tangled orange-yellow masses on herbaceous hosts.
• Leaves: Absent (aphyllous); only reduced scales at nodes.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Flowers 2–3 mm, often glandular, borne in compact globose glomerules on short pedicels. Calyx surrounding corolla tube, lobes ovate-orbicular. Corolla campanulate, tube short, lobes broadly triangular, acute, inflexed at apex, equalling tube. Stamens shorter than lobes. Nectary scales ovate, fimbriate, exserted. Ovary globose; styles slender; stigmas globose-capitate.
• Fruit: Capsule flattened-globose, larger than persistent corolla. Seeds ovoid, mucilaginous when wet.
• Phenology: Flowers mainly in summer.
• Hosts & ecology: Broad host range, especially legumes (clovers frequent). An aggressive, invasive parasite spread with crop seed; often confused historically with Cuscuta pentagona (= C. arvensis).
• Lebanese localities: Bikfaya (Mt), Ksara (Mt).
• Syrian localities: Douma → ‘Adra, ‘Ateibé (Damascus region).
• Native range: Widespread in the Americas, from Canada (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec, Saskatchewan) through the United States (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming) to Mexico (Central, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest), Central America (Belize, Guatemala), the Caribbean (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Leeward and Windward Islands), and South America (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Uruguay) including the Galápagos. (POWO)
• Introduced range: Naturalized widely across Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, including the Mediterranean (Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Palestine, Lebanon–Syria), Africa (Morocco, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion, Seychelles), Asia (India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Transcaucasus, Siberia, Russian Far East, Yemen), Pacific islands (Hawaii, Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Society Islands, Tuamotu, Line Islands, Niue, New Caledonia), and Australia–New Zealand (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand North and South Islands) (POWO).