Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition
Amyema bifurcata (Benth.) Tiegh.
Tieghem, P.E.L. van (1894) Bull. Soc. Bot. France 41: 507.
Aerial stem-parasitic shrub. Plants pendulous, epicortical runners absent.
Leaf blades linear, lanceolate, sometimes falcate, often sub-opposite, about 11-15.5 x 1-2 cm, petioles about 1-2.5 cm long. Venation longitudinal, parallel and 3-5-veined.
Flowers borne in dyads or triads, flowers +/- sessile, triads in 2 or 3-rayed umbels. Umbel rays about 10-15 mm long. Primary peduncle slender, about 15-40 mm long. Pedicels about 3-7 mm long, clothed in rusty tomentum. Calyx about 0.7 mm long, devoid of any obvious lobes. Corolla about 22-30 mm long, ovary about 3-5 mm long. Calyx and corolla clothed in rusty brown tomentum. Anthers about 3.5-4 mm long, staminal filaments about 1-5 mm long attached to the upper half of the corolla. Style 25-30 mm long, stigma terminal, globular.
Fruit cream to orange when ripe, globose to obpyriform, about 9-10 x 9 mm, sparsely clothed in rusty scales. Seeds about 7 x 5 mm, radicle green, slightly protruding. Embryo green, about 5-6 mm long. Cotyledons about 3 mm long. Radicle 2-3 mm long, tuberculate.
Features not available.
Food plant for the larval stage of the Scarlet Jezabel, Silky Jewel, Silky Azure, Satin Azure, Orange-tipped Azure, Southern Purple Azure and Northern Purple Azure Butterflies. Braby , M. (2000).