Cuscuta chinensis Lam.

Gebel Elba.

Southeast Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Arabia, Socotra, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka, Australia.

On Vigna.

Annual and rarely Perennial.

Host: Herbaceous plants, mostly on weeds also on kenof, (Hibiscus cannabinus) cotton, jute and legumes.

The authors have not seen any specimens of this species. Stewart (l.c.) has cited only one specimen of Clarke 29062 from Srinagar, Kashmir. Description of the species is mainly developed from Yuncker (l.c.1932).

Stem slender, 0.6-0.8 mm across, pale yellow, glabrous, smooth. Flower in dense glomerules or very rarely arranged in small umbelliform inflorescence, 2-4 mm long; pedicel as long as or slightly longer than calyx; bracts narrowly triangular, keeled, entire nearly transparent. Calyx loose about the corolla, ± reaching the corolla lobes, calyx lobes triangular-ovate, thickened and fleshy towards the tops to form a carina, also more or less, thickned below the sinuses, slightly overlapping obtuse or acutish, 2-2.5 mm long. Corolla slightly longer than calyx, slightly globular, becoming more so as the fruit develops; corolla lobes triangular-ovate or oblong-ovate, spreading, acute or obtuse fleshy with or without a short carina towards the tip, ± equal or shorter than the tube, tip often inflexed. Stamens nearly half the length of corolla lobes; filament flat, pale, longer than the anther; anther ovate-cordate, yellow, scale large; reaching the base of the filaments, fringed with long or medium length processes. Ovary depressed-globose; style 2 stout or slender, thin, divergent, as long m or slightly longer than the ovary; stigma capitate. Fruit a capsule, flattened to globose, c. 3 mm across, membranous, depressed, dehiscing at the base by an uneven, transverse suture, surmounted by corolla and styles. Seeds 2-4, in each eapsule, 1.25 nun long, pale brown, with narrow oblong hilum.

Stems yellow, thin, ca. 1 mm in diam. Inflorescences lateral, compact cymose glomerules, few to many flowered, subsessile; bracts and bracteoles scalelike. Pedicel ca. 1 mm. Calyx cupular; sepals triangular, ca. 1.5 mm, apex obtuse, partly thickened. Corolla white, urceolate, ca. 3 mm; lobes persistent triangular-ovate, apex acute or obtuse, reflexed. Stamens inserted at throat; scales oblong, reaching stamens, long fimbriate. Ovary subglobose. Styles 2, equal or unequal in length; stigma globose. Capsule enclosed by withered corolla, globose, ca. 3 mm in diam., circumscissile. Seeds 2-4, pale brown, ovoid, ca. 1 mm, scabrous. 2n = 28, 56.

Distribution: Ethiopea, Sokotra and Afghanistan, eastward to Ceylon, Australia and China, where it is most abundant.

Widespread in China [Afghanistan, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Mongolia, Russia, Sri Lanka; Africa, SW Asia, Australia].

Fields, open mountain slopes, thickets, sandy beaches, often on plants of Fabaceae, Asteraceae, and Zygophyllaceae; 200-3000 m.

Cuscuta chinensis Lam. is a stem holoparasite vine in the family Convolvulaceae. It was first described in China in 1786.