Dodder the Lovely Lady’s Laces

From the moment this delicate yet persistent little vine showed up in my flower boat a few years ago, I was intrigued. It seemed like some sort of parasite, but like many such, it didn’t seem to harm the plants it wrapped in its loving embrace unless they were particularly small or fragile to begin with.

I got quite a magickal vibe from it, but couldn’t really place it. The tangling vines were too delicate to be bindings, albeit they wrapped and twirled in relentless spirals around anything nearby and then reached out, grasping to embrace yet more lovers.

It has a delicate and loving vibe. Strange for what looks like some softer, gentler version of strangle vine or bind weed.

Well, I finally was able to identify it.

Dodder (Cuscuta epithymum).

She is a parasitic plant also known to many as Love Vine. Some of her other names are Witches’ Hair, Lady’s Laces, Strangle Tare and Devil’s Guts.

She is one of the few flowering parasites and has a number of both medicinal and magickal uses. Among these are knot magick (surely inspired by those lovely, long laces), and love divination.

Her planet is Saturn, her element, water.

She came to Thorne’s Garden via a random pack of wildflower seeds and flourishes seasonally in one of my old wooden rowboat beds. I’ll be ritually harvesting some of these vines throughout various moon phases and planetary hours, for use in my own magic’s as well as to offer in my store.

Blessed be,

93

In Light and Shadow,

~Thorne  

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