Cassytha filiformis
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Yugulu is the mayi rom a semi –parasitic
vine which covers trees like a net. It bears a tiny, bitter green
berry which turns semi-transparent when it is said to be "cook". It is then sweet and ready to eat. This mayi (bush food) will
stain the teeth if eaten in large quantities.
The Nyangummarta people made their jinapuka- footwear-with small hanks of this plant, moulding a pad like a sandal. A pad was also used as a cushion when carrying firewood, coolamons (marnjata in Karajarri) and other objects balanced on the head. Yugulu was even useful as a head covering, protecting the wearer from either sun or rain.
You can find this plant by its very striking netlike appearance –sometimes orange- when it covers and almost strangles its host tree. In Broome, Yugulu is common and can be seen clearly from the road as you travel around. The plant bears its fruit after the Wet in the months from March to May.
In the old days, the Bardi people used to dense mesh of this plant as a net to catch their fish.
Perennial parasitic, partly autotrophic twiner, attached by small elliptic haustoria formed along stems at points of contact with the host; stems filiform, pubescent to glabrescent; leaves reduced to minute scales; flowers pale creamish green, sessile, globular-ovoid; fruit Glabrous, ovoid to nearly globular, green becoming translucent, pearly white, drying black. In canopies of paperbarks behind coastal dunes at Martins Well, Elephant and Coulomb Points, Beagle Bay; on Celtis on coastal dunes at One Arm Point and widespread in pindan and vine thickets at Broome. A pantropic species occurring in North and South America, Southern Africa, Asia and islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Bardi name =jirrwany; Nyul Nyul = goody goody; Yawuru = yugulu Whole plant medicinal; warm vine applied for rheumatic pains and general aches; edible pearly white fruit. Footwear was made by moulding a pad of the tangled stems into a sandal. The Bardi are reported to have used the dense mesh of stems as a net to catch a fish.
Flowering and
fruiting all year.
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(Photo bk - taken beside the footpath on Gubinge Road) |
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