Saturday, August 6, 2011

Orange Vines







I love how these orange Dodder vines quietly but determinedly just move in and take over everything, winding around things with what seems to clearly be conscious intention. Soon they've created such a tangled web that no man could ever hope to remove it - not without damaging everything else it's connected itself to.

It's even more invasive than it appears: according to this page, Dodder lacks chlorophyll and selectively wraps itself around plants that do have it. "Tiny suckers sip nutrients directly from the stems of the host plants. The structures are technically called “haustoria” – a special kind of root structure that apparently can penetrate the tissue of the host without penetrating cell membranes… Fungi have this type of structure, too."

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