_Sandalwood Family_
Low herbs parasitic on the roots of other plants, with entire leaves
and perfect, greenish flowers, either terminal or axillary; calyx
3—6-lobed; petals wanting; stamens as many as the calyx lobes and
inserted near their bases or opposite them upon the disc; fruit in
the only genus represented in the region, drupe-like, crowned by the
persistent style.
[Sidenote: =Comandra pallida= DC. _Pale Comandra._]
Stem slender and leafy, 6—12 inches tall, pale and glaucous. Leaves
linear or linear-lanceolate, acute or the lowest of those of the stem,
oblong-elliptic. Flowers small, less than ¼ of an inch high with short
pedicels, clustered at the summit of the stems, calyx purplish or
sometimes nearly white; fruit ovoid-oblong, nearly half an inch high
and crowned by the very short upper portion of the calyx tube.
On dry hillsides throughout the Rockies; flowering during June.
[Illustration: Comandra pallida DC. (⅔ Nat.) White Comandra.]
[Illustration: Eriogonum subalpinum Greene. (½ Nat.) Tall Eriogonum.]
[Sidenote: =Comandra livida= Rich. _Northern Comandra._]
Stem slender, usually quite simple, 4—12 inches high. Leaves
thin, oval, obtuse or rounded at the apex, narrowed at the base,
short-petioled ½—1½ inches long, nearly half as broad, yellowish or
purplish-green when young, becoming bright green or often variegated
with age. Flowers small, less than ¼ of an inch broad; purplish-green,
in axillary clusters of 1—5 flowers; drupe globose-oblong, ¼ of an inch
in diameter, bright red when ripe.
Throughout the Rockies in moist ground and shaded mossy places and
borders of woods, flowering in June. While inconspicuous early in the
season, in midsummer it is apt to be quite showy on account of the
striking, golden yellow veining of the otherwise green leaves; this
condition is due to a fungoid or other disease of the plant.