Dodder is a parasitic, thread-like, yellow-orange vine which grows entwined around other plants looking like a pile of orange string. They appear leafless as the leaves are reduced to scales. The pea-sized fruit is the color of the stem. The tiny, five-petalled, white flowers differentiate between species.

Bigseed Alfalfa Dodder
Cuscuta indecora

Family: Morning Glory (Convolvulaceae)
AKA: Large-seed Dodder, Pretty Dodder, Showy Dodder.
Photo taken on: July 20, 2009
Location: Huerfano CR 650, Eastern CO
Life Zones: Plains to foothills
Habitat: Roadsides, open sunny areas

Tiny (6mm) flowers are waxy and bell-shaped with obvious stalks and more loose flower clusters than the Dodder below. The petal tube is much longer than the petal lobes. This Dodder is entwined around Bindweed, another twining species.

Fiveangled Dodder
Cuscuta pentagona

Family: Morning Glory (Convolvulaceae)
AKA:
Photo taken on: August 25, 2017
Location: CR 142, Abiquiu, NM
Life Zones: Plains to foothills
Habitat: Roadsides

Tiny (3mm) flowers are urn-shaped (about as tall as wide). The flowers are arranged in very short-stalked, small, compact clusters scattered along the stem. This plant was twined around Ragweed.