dodder and pickleweed ~ 07/22/11 ~ Elkhorn Slough

salt marsh dodder on pickleweed

The orange stringy stuff is dodder, and the cactus-looking plant is pickleweed. When I first saw dodder at Elkhorn Slough, I thought someone's brightly-colored, tangled, plastic fishing line had washed in from the last high tide. It took seeing dodder at Pinnacles, too far away from any fishing, for me to figure out it is a plant, parasitic and alive.

blooming salt marsh dodder
Cuscuta salina 
Convolvulaceae (formerly Cuscutaceae)

So, imagine my further surprise to find dodder blooming... not just tiny little blooms, but relatively good-sized white blooms, way bigger than the thin orange stems supporting them. As of 1998, it has been moved to the morning glory family. Wild.

blooming pickleweed
Salicornia virginica (aka Salicornia depressa, Sarcocornia pacifica)
Amaranthaceae (formerly Chenopodiaceae)

When I first saw the dodder blooms, I thought it was the pickleweed blooming. Nope. Pickleweed has barely noticeable white blooms as shown above, which apparently has allergenic pollen. It, too, has been moved to a new family.

ps 10/07/11 - I wished I had linked to the reference of where I read the pollen was allergenic. I do remember a volunteer-looking fellow had stopped as I was taking these pictures to point out the tiny flowers on the pickleweed. We had a brief quip about how that was unexpected considering the more showy dodder blooms. In any case, the main reason for this postscript is that Wanderin' Weeta states the white stuff on the pickleweed are actually salt crystals, not flowers. I haven't been able to find any information about this. Do you know?

salt marsh dodder on pickleweed
Cuscuta salina on Salicornia virginica
Convolvulaceae (formerly Cuscutaceae) and Amaranthaceae (formerly Chenopodiaceae)

I first posted dodder from my Pinnacles hike on April 16, 2009. I found it interesting that this dodder was on pickleweed, considering I would assume there's high salt content. I don't know enough about how the salt is stored in pickleweed or how the dodder obtains it nutrients from plants to explain this.

ps 05/09/10 - By happenstance, I came across this Elkhorn Slough Research site and was able to confirm IDs of both plants to species. A better summary of the research is here. Interesting to note Wikipedia says recent research has placed dodder in the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae), but I'll stick with Calflora until they make a correction. Plus, pickleweed is now being placed in the amaranth family (Amaranthaceae). And, no, the Katie in the article is not me.
ps 08/03/11 - Both dodder and pickleweed have been moved to new families by APG and followed by Jepson.

dodder
Cuscuta sp.
Convolvulaceae (formerly Cuscutaceae)

This parasite is very strange to behold. It feels like slightly moist, stringy plastic strands. It took me until the Pacific Grove Museum's annual wildflower show to even know it was a native plant.

ps 08/03/11 - I've made corrections to the family name above. According to the Pinnacles plant list the 3 types of dodder are: San Joaquin dodder (Cuscuta californica var. breviflora), California dodder (Cuscuta californica var. californica), and canyon dodder (Cuscuta subinclusa). Without the flower there is no way for me to distinguish between species.