THE SANDALWOOD FAMILY 
[ORDER LXIX. SANTALACE.E] 
SMALL order represented in the British Isles by one species, the Bastard Toadflax 
(Thesium humifusum), a semi-parasitic herb with green leaves, which, though capable of 
taking in nourishment itself, yet fastens itself by means of little knob-like suckers on its roots on 
to other green-leaved plants and absorbs their food. 
The family comprises herbs, shrubs, and trees, most of them being semi-parastic. They are 
principally found in hot or tropical countries. 
Some species are valuable for their bark, one of the best known being the fragrant Sandalwood 
Tree (Santalum album), a parasitic tree growing in East India, from which is obtained the 
sandalwood of commerce and sandalwood oil 
THESIUM. Linn. — Flowers small, in clusters in the only British species, as described on 
Plate 45- 
Bastard Toadflax. (Thesium humifusum. DC.)— The only British species. The 
flowers are about £ inch across, on stalks about the same length, each with 3 narrow strap-like 
bracts at the base of the perianth, and they form slender or elongated clusters (panicles or racemes) • 
the perianth is funnel-shaped, cleft into 4 or 5 lobes with a minute tooth between each lobe, white 
inside and green outside ; the fruit is a small ovoid ribbed nut, crowned with the perianth-lobes ; 
the stems are 3-18 inches long, prostrate, numerous, usually spreading in a circle ; the leaves, 
£-1 inch long, are narrowly strap-shaped (linear), obscurely i-veined, and somewhat fleshy ; and the 
root is parasitic on various other roots. ( Thesium linophyllum. Linn.') \_Piate 45. 
Local, rare. In chalky or limestone pastures in the southern and south-eastern counties of 
England. May — July. Perennial. 
*35 
