Photo Of The Week: What’s That?

August 14, 2024
Larry Hurley
Annual Plants
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I was walking at a park near my home in Middleton, WI that has a restored wetland. I noticed this white stuff wound around the stems of a few of the plants.

Looking closer, I saw that it was made up of hundreds of tiny white flowers, and there were thin, dried, orange colored strands hanging from it.

It turned out to be a parasitic plant called Rope Dodder, Cuscuta glomerata. Some species of dodder are common, and easily recognized as masses of orange strands growing in piles on plants. They are not something you want in your garden, because, as non-photosynthesizing parasitic plants, they are both destructive and hard to get rid of. This odd little wetland species, though, is rare and considered to be a “species of special concern” in Wisconsin; that is, rare.

It certainly is odd!

Larry Hurley

Larry Hurley worked at Behnke Nurseries from 1984 until the business was composted in 2019, primarily with the perennial department in growing, buying and sales.

Before landing at Behnke’s, he worked as a technician in a tissue culture lab, a houseplant “expert” at a florist shop, and inventory controller at a wholesale nursery in Dallas. With this and that, ten years passed.

When his wife Carolyn accepted a position at Georgetown University, Larry was hired at Behnke’s for the perennial growing department and garden center at Behnke’s Largo location.

In 2021, Larry and Carolyn moved back to Wisconsin to be closer to family and further from traffic. After 37 years in a shaded yard in Maryland, he is happy to have a sunny lot where he can grow all sorts of new perennials, if only he can keep the rabbits at bay. He also enjoys cooking, traveling, and the snowblower.