Dodder-laurel

Cassytha filiformis, the love-vine or laurel dodder, is a leafless, parasitic vine in the Lauraceae with a near-pantropical distribution on coastal dunes, beach scrub, and disturbed open ground from the Caribbean and tropical Americas through Africa, southern Asia, northern Australia, and the Pacific islands. The plant consists of slender, yellow-green to orange, twining, thread-like stems 0.5-2 mm in diameter that wind through the canopy of host shrubs and trees, attaching by small disc-shaped haustoria that tap into the host's vascular tissue to extract water and nutrients. Leaves are reduced to minute, scarcely visible scales. Small, fragrant, white to greenish, 6-tepalled flowers about 2 mm across are clustered in short spikes or heads along the stems, followed by globose, fleshy, white drupes 5-8 mm in diameter that turn translucent at maturity and are dispersed by birds. Though parasitic, the plant contains chlorophyll and is only hemiparasitic.