The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Cuscuta sandwichiana
Also called Hawaiian Dodder
Kauna'oa kahakai (Hawaiian dodder) is a leafless, yellow parasitic vine and the only dodder endemic to Hawaii. It grows on coastal sand and attaches to host plants to take their water and nutrients, so it is not grown as a garden plant.
Cuscuta sandwichiana (Kauna'oa kahakai) is a parasitic vine and the only member of the genus Cuscuta (commonly called "dodder") that is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. It parasitizes a wide variety of indigenous, endemic and introduced plants on all of the main Hawaiian islands. It grows in coastal areas with sandy soils from sea level elevation to 975 feet. The indigenous kaunaʻoa pehu (literally "swollen kaunaʻoa") Cassytha filiformis is a similar-looking species with the same parasitic nature. It is an unrelated plant in the laurel family Lauraceae which can be distinguished by its larger, coarser yellowish-green stems.
Alfalfa dodder · Field dodder · Cuscuta monogyna · Large Saltmarsh Dodder · Fiveangled dodder · Saltmarsh dodder · Dodder
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cuscuta sandwichiana by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
