Cassytha melantha

Thanks Darcy. Thats a new one for me!

Hard to ID from photos, need mature fruit. The clusters you can see are the emerging fruit or flowers.

@Tapirlord and @MichaelMulvaney not difficult to identify, _Cassytha melantha_ – melan- in botany means black, as you would know.

With these, so many shown here, actually, spikes inflorescences with dark coloured hairs, including many flowers' buds with many dark coloured hairs (not young growing fruits yet (paler coloured). Incidently the fruits when ripe and then dried go black too, just confusing the botanist.).

Including in more details we can only see in aggregate blur here:
with these so many flowers' buds, about to flower en masse.:

Each flower covered in characteristic black and dark red hairs over the buds' sepals' green flesh (with some other coloured hairs), and black and dark red hairs over each buds' petals.

Combined with the, in proportion to these buds,
thick stems,
thicker stems than all other south-eastern Au _Cassytha_ spp. .
As moderators access, please refer to the full resolution originals of these two photographs.

Closely familiar for me from across south-eastern Au for over 35 years.

Small trees even, eg. 5m tall, can get killed by this biggest species in south-eastern Au – i have observed .

Refer please to:

The Flora of Vic. online VicFlora,
here:
→ https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/flora/key/2160
→ https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/flora/taxon/330bbf5f-ab89-4dcd-b081-bfc6a8c0233e

Quotation about this species habit: "
This is the most robust member of the genus, often extensively and densely draping over (and sometimes smothering) shrubs and trees.
" .


The Flora of Au online :
• Genus page, desciption treatment and key to spp. across Au: → https://profiles.ala.org.au/opus/foa/profile/Cassytha
• This species page: → https://profiles.ala.org.au/opus/foa/profile/Cassytha%20melantha
• Flora of Au photograph of the budding inflorescences on the stems, as here in this sighting: → https://ala-images.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/store/9/1/7/8/59d42901-fadb-4b95-88d7-c0ca24bd8719/original
.