I 



COMANDRA (Bastard Toadflax) 



Comandra umbellata I L. ) Nutt. 



April A small, low plant. \\\o ("oniandra l)lossoms now in 



Woods, prairies April uii the <liv .-tnl ul a li()<:l)atk ridLfi'. It is an 



iiifonspicuous plant, not ei?pecially hcautiiul with its 

 greenish-white llowors, but neat and well arranged witli alternately oval, 

 groy-green leaves. TIk^ comandra. liowevor. is part of its environment, 

 one of the plants which will grow in the dry clay of the hoghack ridge, 

 as well a.s in sandy places and sometimes out on the level j)rairie. 



It is a nieniiier of ihc Sandalwood family which is largely tropical 

 except for three genera. tl;e southern nestronia. the mountain pyrularia 

 or buifalo nut, and the conumdra, low and small and in>ignilicant in 

 the springtime. 



Comandra is firndy lived in its environment. It cannot be trans- 

 planted because its I'oots are parasitic on the roots of trees and shrubs 

 wliere it grows — and there it stays. It stays Just as linnly attached to 

 its host as the larger plant, the sandalwood tree it.self, far away in Poly- 

 nesian forests, is attach(>d to its host plant. 



Thus, remotely but vividly, tlie plants of the world bind the world 

 together in a mysterious netwoik of associations and connections which 

 <mlv superliciallv are understood. The comandra on an Illinois hill, the 

 Sandalwood in Malaya, in Hawaii, in Polynesia, in .Vustralia, both of 

 tlieni members of the same stranue I'amilv. 



;{S 



