Cassytha filiformis

Cassytha filiformis

Cassytha filiformis, common name love-vine, is a species of obligate parasitic vine in the family Lauraceae. The species has a native pantropical distribution encompassing the Americas, Indomalaya, Australasia, Polynesia and tropical Africa  In the Caribbean region, it is one of several plants known as "Love vine" because it has a reputation as an aphrodisiac.

Cassytha filiformis is a twining vine with an orange to pale green stem. Leaves are reduced to scales about 1 mm long. Flowers are borne in spikes or sometimes solitary. There are six tepals, each 0.1-2.0 mm long. Fruit is a drupe about 7 mm in diameter.

The 1889 book 'The Useful Native Plants of Australia records that the "This and other species of Cassytha are called " Dodder-laurel." The emphatic name of "Devil's guts" is largely used. It frequently connects bushes and trees by cords, and becomes a nuisance to the traveller. "This plant is used by the Brahmins of Southern India for seasoning their buttermilk. (Treasury of Botany?)".

A 2018 study revealed how a southern Florida subspecies of this widespread species has developed a complex form of carnivorous plant behaviour. New tendrils will actively seek out galls made by the gall wasp, Belonocnema treatae, on leaves of a host oak tree, Quercus geminata. Once its haustoria -- the parasitic growth that infects its host -- penetrates the gall, the larvae shrivel as this parasitic plant drains both the gall and its inhabitant. In the study, other species of plant and gall wasp become parasitised by this plant in the southern Florida area too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassytha_filiformis

 

 

 

 

 

 

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