MOUNTAIN FLOWERS 



103 



stems, which are sheathed by the stalks of the long-shaped 

 leaves. The flowers are very numerous in the mountains, are 

 white to rose colour, and grow in dense narrow spikes, which 

 have several little bulbs below the full-blown blossoms. The 

 seeds are red. See Plate XXXII. 



A description of Polygonum ajnphibium^ or Water Persi- 

 caria, will be found in the Miscellaneous Section. 



WHITE COMANDRA 



Comandra pallida. Sandalwood Family 



Stems: glaucous, slender, simple, very leafy. Leaves: linear, acute, 

 sessile. Flowers: cymes several-flowered, corymbose, clustered at the 

 summit, peduncles short. 



The Comandra is parasitic on the roots of other plants. It 

 has pretty little whitish-green flowers, which grow in clusters 

 and are bulb-shaped at the base, spreading out into five lobes 

 at the top. The leaves are very narrow and grow close to 

 and all the way up the stalk, and the fruit is a nut-like berry, 

 which retains at its tip the upper short part of the calyx. 



C. livida, or Swamp Comandra, differs from the foregoing 

 species in that it has wider leaves, each one growing on its 

 own tiny stalk attached to the main stem ; and whereas the 

 flowers of the White Comandra grow in clusters at the top 

 of the stems, those of the Swamp Comandra grow in the 

 axils of the leaves lower down on the stems, and its fruit is 

 a roundish red and edible berry. 



CORAL-ROOT 



Corallorhiza innata. Orchid Family 



Root coralloid, branching. Stems: glabrous, clothed with closely 

 sheathing scales. Flowers: in long racemes on short minutely bracted 

 pedicels; sepals and petals narrow, lip short; spur a sac adnate to the 

 summit of the ovary. Fruit : capsule oblong. 



