Cassytha, Neocinnamomum and Caryodaphnopsis
Already the studies of Chanderbali et al. (2001) and Rohwer & Rudolph (2005) suggested that the genera Cassytha, Neocinnamomum and Caryodaphnopsis are placed between the Cryptocarya group and the Mezilaurus group. Their precise positions, however, remained unclear. Recently, the analysis of Song et al. (2017) for the first time provided significant support for the nodes separating these genera.
Cassytha is the most aberrant genus of the Lauraceae. In contrast to the other genera it does not include trees or shrubs, but hemiparasitic twiners, which draw water and nutrients from their host via haustoria. Cassytha includes 16 or 17 species, 14 of them from Australia (Weber, 1981), one pantropical. Neocinnamomum includes 5 or 6 species from southeast Asia, Caryodaphnopsis 17 species, 7 of them from tropical America, 10 from southeast Asia.