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. ".
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.