Cassytha pubescens the Devil's Twine is a common twining plant of the Laurel family

Lauraceae

The Lauraceae or Laurel family comprises a group of flowering plants included in the order Laurales. The family contains about 55 genera and over 3500, perhaps as many as 4000, species world-wide, mostly from warm or tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia and South America...

, in southern and eastern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. A hemi-parasitic

Parasitic plant

A parasitic plant is one that derives some or all of its sustenance from another plant. About 4,100 species in approximately 19 families of flowering plants are known. Parasitic plants have a modified root, the haustorium, that penetrates the host plant and connects to the xylem, phloem, or...

 climber.

An apparently leafless plant with warty stems when old. Stems are between a half and one and a half millimetres in diameter. Leaves are present in the form of tiny scales. The haustoria are 2 to 3 millimetres long.

Tiny flowers form in summer. Being hairy, stalk-less or nearly so, yellow or white. The fruit is round, ribbed and hairy, around 10 mm in diameter. The fruit are sweet and mucousy to taste.
In 1810, this species first appeared in scientific literature, in the Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae, authored by the prolific Scottish botanist, Robert Brown

Robert Brown (botanist)

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

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