Scent Stalking: Parasitic vine grows toward tomato odor

A wiry orange vine finds plants to raid for nutrients by growing toward their smell, researchers report.

CREEP. The tendril of a young dodder plant stretches out to entwine a tomato seedling (left). A dodder tangle steals nutrients and water from a glasswort (right). Runyon/C. Purrington

One of the parasitic plants called dodders responds to volatile compounds wafting off nearby plants and shows preferences for certain species, says Consuelo De Moraes of Pennsylvania State University in University Park.