58 Flora of the Palouse Region 



Family 21. LORANTHACEAE. 



Parasitic shrubs or herbs, yellow or yellowish-green, grow- 

 ing on woody plants and absorbing food from their sap through 

 specialized roots (haustoria): leaves opposite: flowers regular, ter- 

 minal or axillary, clustered or solitary, dioecious (in ours): calyx- 

 tube adnate to the ovary: stamens 2-6: ovary solitary, erect; style 

 simple or none; stigma terminal: fruit a berry; seed solitary; en- 

 dosperm usually copious and fleshy. 



89. ARCEUTHOBIUM. 



Small fleshy glabrous plants, parasitic on the branches of con- 

 iferous trees: branches 4-angled: leaves reduced to opposite con- 

 nate scales: flowers dioecious, not bracted, solitary or several to- 

 gether in the axils of the scales: staminate flowers with a 2-5- 

 parted calyx and usually an equal number of stamens: pistillate 

 flowers with an inferior ovary: berry fleshy, ovoid, more or less 

 ilattened. 



Two doubtful species occur in the Thatuna Hills, one on Larix 

 occidentalis, the other on Pinus contorta. Both perhaps are referable 

 to A. douglasii Engeltn. In the present confusion of this genus and with 

 insufficient herbarium material at hand, we have preferred not to character- 

 ize the species. 



Family 22. SANTAEACEAE. 



Herbs or shrubs: leaves alternate or opposite, entire, without 

 stipules: flowers clustered or solitary, axillary or terminal, perfect, 

 monoecious or dioecious, mostly greenish: calyx adnate to the base 

 of the ovary, or to the disk, 3-6-lobed: petals none: stamens as 

 many as the calyx-lobes -and opposite them; filaments slender or 

 short: ovary i-celled; orules 2-4: fruit a drupe or nut; seed 1, 

 ovoid or globose. 



90. COMANDRA. 



Glabrous erect perennial herbs, sometimes parasitic on the 

 roots of other plants: leaves alternate, oblong, oval, lanceolate or 

 linear, entire, piunately veined: flowers perfect, terminal or axil- 

 lary, rarely solitary, cymose, bractless: calyx campanulate; base 

 of its tube adnate to the ovary; limb 5-lobed: stamens 5, rarely 4, 

 at the bases of the calyx-lobes and between the lobes of the disk: 

 fruit drupaceous, globose or ovoid, crowned by the persistent 

 calyx. 



C. pallida A. DC. . Stems erect, from woody rootstocks, 30-40 cm. high, 

 simple or branched above: leaves sessile, lanceolate or linear, acuminate, 

 pale and glaucous, 2-4 cm. long: umbels clustered: flowers 4-5 mm. long, 



