Cuscuta pulchella Engelm.

A very pretty and delicate species, closely related to Cuscuta capitata, from which it can be separated by the presence of 4 sepal and petal lobes and by the thick sepal lobes at the base and also by having a very thin stem.

Stem thin, making spirals around the stem, brown to violet. Leaves fleshy to scarious, linear-oblong, acute, 0.5-0.8 x c. 0.2 mm. Flowers in cymes or sometimes solitary, 1.5-3.0 mm long; pedicel 1.5-2.5 (-0.4) mm long. Calyx lobes 5, oblong-spathulate, with prominent reticulate pattern, acute to obtuse, mostly yellow-brown, rarely violet-brown, 2-2.2 x 0.5-1.0 mm; tube c. 1.0 mm long. Corolla lobes 5, 2-2.2 x 1-1.5 mm, oblong-elliptical, with reticulate pattern, yellowish-white, obtuse, tip mostly glandular, mostly spreading, tube 1.2-1.5 mm long. Scales scarious, slightly shorter than corolla tube, slightly fringed, c. 0.5 mm long. Stamens 5, filament linear, tapering towards the apex, fused filament 0.5 mm long, anther .oblong-elliptical, c. 0.5 x c. 0.3 mm. Ovary globose-conical, fleshy with thick base, brown, 0.4-0.5 mm long; styles 2, linear, mostly equal or rarely unequal, 0.5-0.6 mm long; stigma round or capitate, present only on one style, c. 0.1 mm in diameter; Ovules 4, oblong, brown, 02-0.3 x c. 0.2 mm. Capsule membranous, globular, with intrastylar opening, not definitely circumacissile, surmounted by style and stigma. Seed mostly 2, brown, dull, ovoid to oblong-elliptical, papillate, ± c. 1.0 mm x c. 0.7 mm.

Distribution: Afghanistan and Pakistan.