The Parasite That Wires Plants Together
By draining the fluids from several hosts, dodder vines inadvertently allow plants to communicate with each other and share alarm signals.
by Ed Yong
Aug 31, 2017
2 minutes
It goes by witch’s hair, strangleweed, devil’s gut, wizard’s net, and hellbine. And anyone who sees dodder vines in action will quickly understand why they’ve earned such dastardly, eldritch names. These parasitic plants emerge from the ground as a slender tendril, which for chemicals released by potential hosts. When the tendril finds a target, it wraps itself around a stem, grows
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