Dodder vine is an amazing plant, it is orange rather than green due to its lack of chlorophyl, it can’t make its own food.
Instead the dodder vine hatches in the spring from a seed and very slowly moves in a circle searching the air for beta-myrcene a volatile chemical emitted into the air by tomatoes and other plants. When it picks up the scent of beta-myrcene it grows in the direction of the odor until it finds the plant emitting it.
Once it reaches the plant it tightly winds itself around the plant, sinking roots into the host plant. The roots then suck up the juices in the host plant to feed itself. The host plant will then wilt and die.
Dodder vine also appears to exchange RNA with the host plant. Whether this is a way of exchanging information with the host plant or a way to reprogram it, much the way viruses reprogram our DNA is unknown.
Plants use RNA as a way to send messages through out the plant. When a dodder vine attacks a plant some of the plant’s RNA gets sucked up by the dodder vine. The dodder vine can then read the RNA to better evaluate how to attack the host.
Professor Neelima Sinha and colleagues at the UC Davis Section of Plant Biology studied dodder vines growing on tomato plants in the lab. They found that RNA molecules from the host could be found in the dodder up to a foot (30 cm) from the point where the parasite had plumbed itself into the host.
Plants often use small RNA molecules as messengers between different parts of the plant. In a paper published in Science in 2001, Sinha’s group showed that RNA could travel from a graft into the rest of the plant and affect leaf shape. Plants can also use specific RNAs to fight off viruses. . . [ read more Plant Parasite Wiretaps Host ]
Dodder is a member of the Morning Glory family.
It has very tiny leaves that are more like scales than leaves and tiny white flowers.
It is considered an invasive plant and a threat to the local ecology in Texas.
A new method of plant communication?
Genomic-scale exchange of mRNA between a parasitic plant and its host
YouTube video of dodder vine locating and reaching for a tomato plant
Dodder management guide lines
Herself's Plants 
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