(name alludes to the hairs in the flower). Santalaceae. Perhaps a half-dozen leafy herbs or sub-shrubs, one in Eu., and the others in N. Amer., more or less parasitically attached to the roots of other plants, one or two of which may be of interest to horticulturists. Leaves alternate, almost sessile: flowers whitish or greenish, small, perfect, in terminal cymes or umbellate panicles; calyx 4-5-cleft, lined or constricted above the ovary, and the tube sometimes conspicuously continued to a neck or top on the fruit; petals wanting; stamens of same number as calyx-lobes, the anthers connected by hairs to the calyx-lobes: fruit nut-like or drupe-like. C. umbellata, Nutt. (Fig. 1041), 6-18 in. high, in dry mostly open ground in the eastern states, is an attractive plant when allowed to spread naturally in patches in waste p 1 ac e s: rootstock not showing above ground (C. Richard-siana, Fern., has a superficial root-stock): Ivs. thin, oblong, pale beneath: flowers whitish.

Fig. 1041. Comandra umbellata. (X 1/2) oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, evergreen:

L. H. B