SANTALACEAE 



SANDALWOOD FAMILY 



BASTARD TOADFLAX 



Comandra umhellata (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 i-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. This 

 plant is also found on dry sandy soil, but trom 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, Jewelvveed, 



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-Pycxvecd — Louis Untermeyer 



75 



