Kids at camp are thrilled to see things that they call really gross—call it nature's "ewww" factor.
Take this dog vomit fungus, for example. Actually a slime mold, Fuligo septica, that grows on wood chip mulches, going from bright yellow to orange to brown. It's not harmful, just part of the process of decomposition. But it sure looks like its name.
Dodder (Cuscuta sp.) is not so disgusting in appearance, but kids are interested to hear that it is a parasitic plant, one that lacks its own chlorophyll (or at least does not have enough to supply it with the energy it needs). It must attach itself to other plants and take their nutrients.
It can be a pest of crops and may serve as a vector for some plant diseases. Colin Purrington at Swarthmore College has conducted research on dodder's mechanisms for finding host plants and lists a bunch of scary common names people have called the plant: devilguts, devil's hair, hailplant, hairweed, pull down, stranglevine, strangleweed, tangle gut, and witches' shoelaces.
