SANTALACEAE SANDALWOOD FAMILY 
BASTARD TOADFLAX 
Comandra umbellata (L.) Nutt. 
The Sandalwood family is small, unimportant and 
chiefly tropical. The Bastard Toadflax is the only member 
dwelling in Illinois, and it is interesting principally because 
of its parasitic habit. Although it has green 
leaves and can manufacture food for itself 
as well as any green plant, it often attaches 
its roots to the roots of other plants, mostly 
trees and shrubs, and robs them of a portion 
of their food or food materials. 
The Bastard Toadflax is found in dry, mostly 
sandy soil from Maine to Wisconsin and south 
to Georgia, Arkansas and Kansas. It is an 
herbaceous perennial with an underground stem 
and very leafy, usually branched, upright shoots 
6-16 inches high. The leaves are pale beneath, 
with the pale midrib prominent. 
Greenish white flowers bloom from late April 
to early July. They are perfect but lack a 
corolla. The calyx is grown fast to the ovary 
but is 5-lobed above. Each of the 5 stamens is 
attached to the base of a calyx lobe by a tuft of 
hairs. The style is slender. The fruit is 1-seeded, 
resembles a small drupe and is conspicuously crowned by the 
persistent calyx lobes. 
Another Bastard Toadflax, Comandra Richardsiana Fernald, 
has leaves equally green on both sides, much firmer and incon- 
spicuously veined. The rootstock is at the surface of the soil. 
plant is also found on dry sandy soil, but from eastern Quebec to 
Saskatchewan, south to the Great Lakes region, Missouri and Kansas. 
It flowers from May to August. 
Basil, Boneset, Toadflax, Tansy, 
Weeds of every form and fancy; 
Milkweed, Mullein, Loosestrife, Jewelweed, 
Mustard, Thimbleweed, Tear-thumb (a cruel weed). 
Clovers in all sort—Nonesuch, Melilot; 
Staring Buttercups, a bold and yellow lot. 
Daisies rioting about the place 
With Black-eyed Susan and Queen Anne’s Lace... 
Joe-Pyeweed—Lovuis UNTERMEYER 
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