Cuscuta reflexa Giant Dodder

[partisangardener]

I had this species 50ty years ago. Grew it many years on a great variety of plants (Ficus, Citrus, Coleus, Begonia...)
It is used in Chinese and Ayurveda medicine which I did not know at this time.
Easy to propagate by vegetative means. I had it several years but it never set seed. So I finally lost it.
I like to have one again to grow from seed. Seeds are easy to come by in Asian countries I learned, but I could not find a source to send it to Europe.
Maybe someone in GB has a way to get seeds.

If I get seeds from another source I will post it here in case others are interested.

[arisaema]

I'm not sure our supplies differ much, the seeds are sold whole to be used as a tea... Try searching the Chinese name in Pinyin and you'll find plenty of stores in Germany, but I guess you'll need to ask both the age of the stock - and if they've been prepared/treated in any way. Chinese medicine doesn't separate the species, so you could get any one of multiple native to the country.

https://shop.strato.de/epages/81471567.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/81471567/Products/505
https://internet-apotheke-freiburg.de/shop/tcm/tu-si-zi.html
https://www.magicherbs.de/en/kr-uter/teufelszwirnsamen-tu-si-zi_575_1626

[partisangardener]

Thank you very much for your effort arisaema.
I will contact these, but I doubt that the seeds are life seeds. I tiried several times different spices from China, and they were always dead. I could not find out by what means they were treated. The most likely reason is to sterilize them to prevent mold etc. But maybe they were just too old.
Hope dies last they say.
Greetings

[arisaema]

Apparently they're sometimes roasted, although most seeds I found claim to be raw. I'm heading back to Europe next spring, so if you can't find any viable seeds in Germany I could do a try - but it's the same issue we have locally, you never know the age nor how they've been treated beforehand.

[partisangardener]

Most grateful for all this information and your generous offer Arisaema.

Germination is even with living seeds of Cuscuta, still a mystery to me.
My experience in the early seventies was no problem with the few seeds had had brought from northern India. Vegetative propagation was very easy.
Just placing a cut off tendril in some other host plant worked.
The seedling had a little root and started from germination point with its first tendril to move in circles until it met a host-plant.
 
But with our native species germination was very sparse and very often none. there must be a trick I have not yet discovered.

I hopefully will get information about species and possible viability from the addresses you posted.