Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

3. Cassytha, Linn

3. Cassytha, Linn.

Leafless twining parasites, attaching themselves to living shrubs or trees by means of small suckers; stems terete, wiry or filiform. Leaves replaced by minute scales. Flowers small, hermaphrodite, in spikes or heads or racemes, each flower 3-bracteolate. Perianth-tube turbinate or ovoid; segments of the limb 6, the 3 outer much smaller. Perfect stamens usually 9 in 3 series; the two outer series either ail perfect or rarely the second series reduced to staminodia; anthers introrse; filaments eglandular; the third series all perfect with extrorse anthers, the filaments 2-glandular at the base; an inner fourth series of 3 staminodia present. Ovary almost free from the perianth at the time of flowering; stigma small. Fruit altogether enclosed, in the enlarged and succulent perianth-tube, crowned by the persistent limb. Seed with a membranous testa. Embryo with thick fleshy cotyledons, which are distinct in the young state, but confluent when mature.

A very remarkable genus of parasitic plants with the habit of Cuscuta. Species about 15, 1 of which is very widely distributed, 1 or 2 are found in South Afiica, and 1 in Borneo; the remainder are all Australian, 1 of them being the same as the New Zealand species.

  • 1. C. paniculata, R. Br. Prodr. 404.—Stems pale yellow-green, much branched, several feet in length, covering small shrubs with dense interwoven masses; branches 1/10 in. diam., glabrous or minutely silky at the very tips; scales minute, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, membranous. Spikes numerous, often branched, ½–2 in. long. Flowers minute, distant, sessile, about 1/10 in. diam. Perianth glabrous; the 3 outer segments very small; the inner obtuse. Stamens 9, all perfect. Ovary glabrous. Fruit globose, about the size of a pea, enclosed in the enlarged and succulent perianth-tube, obscurely 6-ribbed or quite smooth.— Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 218; Handb. N.Z. Fl 239; Benth. Fl. Austral. v. 311.

    North Island: Extreme northern peninsula, from the North Cape to Ahipara and Mongonui, abundant. December–March.