Stems thin, intermingled, yellow to brown. Leaves scarious, linear-oblong, 1.5-3.5 mm x 0.5-1.0 mm, sharply acute. Flowers arranged in umbel-like cyme or sometimes solitary, 2-2.5 mm long; pedicel 2-5 mm long. Bracts leaf-like. Calyx lobes 5, ± glossy, scarious, oblong, acuminate, deeply divided, often glandular, 1.5-2.0 mm x 0.5-1.5 mm. Corolla lobes yellowish-white, mostly 5 or sometimes 4, oblong-elliptical, mostly glandular, sharply acute, 1.7-2.2 x 0.7-1.0 mm; tube 1.7-2.0 mm long, scales completely obsolete. Stamen 5, filaments linear, c. 0.5 mm long, attached at the sinus, fused part of the fila-ment prominent, anther oblong-elliptical, c. 0.5 mm long. Ovary ovoid to globular, ± fleshy, ± depressed, 1-1.5 mm long; styles 2, linear, unequal, 0.5-1.5 mm long; stigma capitate, dark brown to reddish-brown, c. 0.2 mm in diameter; ovules 4, elliptical, 0.5-0.7 x c. 0.5 mm. Capsule globular, depressed, , with a intrastylar opening, not definitely circumscissile, the lower part of calyx, surmounted by petals, stamens and styles persisting. Seeds 4, dark brown, ± triangular, c. 1.0 mm broad, dull, ± smooth.

Type: India Orientalis, Heyne.

Distribution: Tropical India to Abyssinia, Kordofan and South Africa.

Hosts: Portulaca sp., Cypenis bulbosus, Zaleya pentandra and Tribulus terrestris.

This species can easily be separated from all other species of Cuscuta by Its long and sharply acute petals and completely obsolete scales.