M.T.M. RAJPUT & S.S. TAHIR

Stem thick, branched, glabrous, or slightly pubescent, mostly not interlaced, succulent, light brown to dark brown. Leaves persistent, cup-shaped, fleshy, margin scarious, obovate obtuse, 1-2.0 x c.1.0 mm. Flowers arranged in paniculate cymes, ivory white, pedicellate, 5.5-7.5 mm long; pedicel 0.5-2.0 (-7) mm long, or obsolete; bracts leaf-like. Calyx lobes 5, fleshy, margin scarious, rounded ovate-obtuse, deeply divided overlapping at the base, 0.7-3.0 x 1.5-2.5 mm, tube c. 1 mm long. Corolla lobes 5, ivory white, obtuse, upright, spreading or reflexed, 1-1.5 x 0.5-0.7 mm; corolla tube 2-3 mm long; scales scarious, reaching the middle of the corolla tub, fringed, c. 1 mm long. Stamens 5, filaments linear, 2-3 mm long, fused filaments prominent like a vein in the petal; anther oblong, basifixed, 1-1.5 mm long. Ovary conical, fleshy, 1-2 mm long; style 1, thick, c. 0.5 mm long, or obsolete stigmas 2, unequal, conical to elongated, dark brown, 0.7-1.0 stun long; ovules 4, oblong-elliptical, c. 0.3 x c. 0.2 mm. Capsule 1-3 x 2-3 mm, globose-conical, brown, not depressed, without intrastylar opening, not circumscissile with a definite line of cleavage, i.e. dehiscing irregularly with remains of sepal lobes below, style and stigma at the top.

Type: Roxb., Icon, ined. 550(K).

Distribution: Afghanistan, throughout northern India to Yunnan (China), Java and in Ceylon.

Hosts: Artemisia, Vicia, Ziziphus, Parrotiopsis, Spiraea, Abutilon, Acacia nilotiea, Salix, Viburmum, Clematis, Euphorbia and Dalbergia sissoo.

This species is closely related to Cuscuta lehmanniana but it can be separated on the basis of its capsule which is small and not definitely circumscissile. However, Yuncker (l.c.) in the description of Cuscuta reflexa indicates that the capsule is circumscissile with a definite line of cleavage. We have examined a large number of specimens belonging to this species, but unable to see any circumscissile capsule with difinite line of cleavage. Pedicel is mostly 0.5-2 mm long, but in one specimen Stewart 19584 (RAW), is up to 7 mm long.