Love vine is Cassytha filiformis, a leafless, wiry, orange-green parasite that drapes itself over hedges and beach scrub across the tropics. It looks almost exactly like dodder, but it belongs to the laurel family, the same family as cinnamon and bay. It is a parasite of living plants, not a food or a tea.
- Botanical name
- Cassytha filiformis L.
- Family
- Lauraceae
- Tamil
- Kodiyagundal
- Hindi
- Amarvel
- Parts used
- None as food
- Habit
- Laurel dodder; Cuscuta is another family
- Last updated
- 2026-10-30
How to recognise Love vine
The plant is a tangle of thread-thin stems, green to orange, with no proper leaves. It winds around a host and presses small suckers, called haustoria, into the host’s stems to draw water and sugars.
Unlike true dodder, love vine keeps some chlorophyll, so its stems are often greenish rather than pure yellow. Its flowers are tiny, white and laurel-like, and they ripen into small, pale, fleshy fruits.
Giant dodder, Cuscuta reflexa, is the parasite most Indians picture as amar bel: thicker, yellow, with clusters of little white bell flowers. Love vine is finer and wirier, and is most common on coastal sand and dry hedges.
The resemblance is convergent evolution. Two unrelated families arrived at the same leafless, twining, parasitic way of life.
Traditional use of Love vine
Caution
Older Indian lists name this parasite, often confusingly alongside Cuscuta under the same vernacular words. A shared name in an old list does not make the two plants interchangeable.
Indian hedge naming
Modern notes on Love vine
Most modern papers on Cassytha are laboratory extract studies. They describe aporphine alkaloids in the stems, which is a reason for caution rather than a reason to drink it.
For farmers the practical fact is damage: a heavy infestation weakens hedges, citrus and other woody hosts.
Love vine safety
Do not eat or drink preparations of the stem. Its alkaloids are not well characterised in people, and amounts vary with the host plant.
Ecology and sourcing
It spreads by seed and by fragments carried on tools and hedge trimmings. Pulling it off a host rarely works; the host branch usually has to be cut back.
On native dune scrub it is part of the community. In orchards and hedges it is a pest.
Related plants
Also in Lauraceae
Questions about Love vine
Is Love vine amar bel?
The word is shared. Giant dodder, Cuscuta reflexa, is the usual amar bel; love vine is a laurel-family look-alike.
How do you tell them apart?
Love vine is thinner, often greenish, and has small laurel flowers. Cuscuta reflexa is thicker and yellow, with clusters of white bells.
Is Love vine a medicine?
It is not one. Do not swallow it.
Sources
- Cassytha filiformis L. — Plants of the World Online, Kew (search) (accessed 2026)
- Wikidata item Q2941329 (Cassytha filiformis)
Educational page about a plant. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not an offer to sell. Traditional use is historical. If you need care, ask a licensed clinician. Questions: hello@meevamed.com.