Appearance
Two forms are recognized:⤷ ''Cassytha glabella'' f. ''dispar'', which has more elongated fruit, either pear-shaped or spindle-shaped.
⤷ ''Cassytha glabella'' f. ''glabella'', which has more oval fruit.
A small twining vine, ''Cassytha glabella'' has twining stems which are around 0.5 mm in diameter. The haustoria are less than one millimetre long. The leaves are present in the form of tiny scales. The tiny flowers may form at any time of the year, although peak from November to March in the Sydney region. They appear on a short spike 5 to 7 mm long and are stalkless, yellow or white. The fruit is round; green or yellow, sometimes with red markings, hairless, around 3 to 6 mm in diameter. It is juicy and succulent.
The plant begins life when it germinates from the seed in the ground, the vine growing and flailing about before latching onto nearby vegetation. The root then dies and the plant lives by suckering along the stems and branches of plants. Although it resembles the dodders of the genus ''Cuscuta'', it is unrelated.
Naming
In 1810, this species first appeared in scientific literature, in the ''Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae'', authored by the prolific Scottish botanist, Robert Brown. Alternate common names include Smooth Cassytha, slender dodder-laurel, tangled dodder-laurel. This and other members of the genus ''Cassytha'' are either classified in their own family Cassythaceae or within the laurel family Lauraceae.References:
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