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SANDALWOOD FAMILY. Santalaceae. 
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SANDALWOOD FAMILY. Santalaceae. 
This is a very small family in this country, for they 
prefer the tropics, and in those regions some are trees. 
Ours are usually parasitic on the roots of their neighbors. 
They have toothless, mostly alternate leaves, mostly 
without leaf-stalks or stipules, and small flowers, with a 
four- or five-lobed calyx and no corolla. The four or five 
stamens are opposite the calyx lobes, at the edge of a 
fleshy disk, and the ovary is one-celled and inferior, with 
one style, developing into a one-seeded fruit. 
There are four kinds of Comandra, one of them European; 
smooth, perennial herbs, with alternate leaves, and flowers 
in clusters, without bracts. The calyx is more or less 
bell-shaped, usually with five lobes, its tube lined with a 
disk, the stamens inserted at base of the lobes and the 
anthers attached to the lobes by tufts of hairs. 
eS ae This is a rather pretty plant, growing 
Coméndra péllide {TOM a few inches to about a foot tall, 
Flesh-color, branching and rather woody below, with 
greenish, purplish pale-green, smooth, slightly thickish, 
Spring, summer -Ather stiff leaves, which are reduced to 
Northwest, Nev., .._. 
Utah, Asis: pinkish scales on the lower stem. The 
flowers are small, usually flesh-color, 
thickish in texture, with slender pedicels, and form ter- 
minal, rather flat-topped clusters. The fruit, which is 
about the size of a small pea, is crowned by the remains of 
the calyx, like a rose-hip. This is common on dry plains 
and hillsides and is noticeable because of its pale and 
somewhat peculiar coloring. 
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