Cassytha melantha

Cassytha melantha, the coarse dodder-laurel or large dodder-laurel, is a perennial parasitic twining vine in the Lauraceae family endemic to southern and eastern Australia, occurring across Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales. It grows in heathland, dry sclerophyll forest, mallee scrub, coastal dunes and montane woodland, parasitising the foliage and stems of a wide range of woody hosts including Eucalyptus, Acacia, Banksia and Leptospermum species. The plant lacks true leaves (these are reduced to minute scales) and instead consists of stout, terete, yellow-green to olive-green twining stems 1 to 3 millimetres thick that may extend many metres through the host canopy; the stems attach by small haustoria that penetrate host tissues to extract water and nutrients. The minute, sessile, perfect flowers are creamy white to greenish and crowded in small spike-like clusters along the stems, each with a six-lobed perianth, nine fertile stamens and a single ovary. The fruit is a globose to ellipsoid drupe 10 to 15 millimetres in diameter, fleshy and green when young, ripening through dull purplish to almost black, enclosed within the persistent fleshy perianth tube. The fruits are edible and are reported to be locally harvested.