The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Cassytha filiformis
Also called Love Vine, Bush Dodder, Dodder Laurel, False Dodder, Lovevine, Seashore Dodder, Woevine
Cassytha filiformis or love-vine is an orangish, wiry, parasitic vine in the family Lauraceae. It is found in coastal forests of warm tropical regions worldwide including the Americas, Indomalaya, Australasia, Polynesia and tropical Africa.
It is an obligate parasite, meaning it cannot complete its life-cycle without another host plant. Research in Florida (in southeast United States) has found that love-vine inhibits gall wasps by attacking the galls (small growths on plants) that the wasps create for their young.
In the Malay Peninsula, the stems are dried and powdered to make a liquid substance to stimulate hair growth.
Cassytha glabella · Coarse Dodder Laurel · Cassytha pubescens · Dodder Laurel · Devils Tresses
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cassytha filiformis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
