Page:An illustrated flora of the Pacific States (vol. 1).djvu/549

528 2. Comandra pallida A. DC. Pale Comandra. Fig. 1279.

Comandra pallida A. DC. Prodr. 14: 636. 1857. Comandra umhellata pallida Jones, Proc. Calif. Acad. II. 5: 722. 1895. Comandra calif arnica Eastw.; Heller, Muhlenbergia 2: 20. 1905. Similar to the preceding species, but paler and glaucous, usually much branched. Leaves sessile, linear or linear-lanceolate, or the lower oblong- elliptic, 15-35 mm. long, acute; cymes few- several -flowered, corymbosely clustered at the sum- mit ; pedicels 2-4 mm. long ; calyx purplish, about 4 mm. long, the lobes oblong; drupe ovoid-oblong, 6-8 mm. long, 4-5 mm., in diameter, the calyx- tube scarcely produced above the body of the fruit. Dry soils, arid Transition Zone; British Columbia to Manitoba south to the Sierra Nevada, California, Arizona, Texas, and Kansas. Type locality: near Clearwater, Idaho. The fruits are sweet and edible.

3. Comandra livida Richards. Northern Comandra. Fig. 1280.

Comandra /iT'u/a Richards. 1823. App. Frank. Journ. 734. Stems slender, usually simple, 10-30 cm. high. Leaves 10-25 mm. long, oval, obtuse at apex, nar- row at base, thin, green; short-petioled ; cymes axillary, few, or often only 1, 1-5-flowered; peduncle shorter than the leaves, filiform; flowers sessile; calyx-lobes ovate; style very short; drupe oblong-globose, about 6 mm. in diameter, red and edible, the calyx-tube not produced above the body of the fruit. In moist soils, Canadian and Hudsonian Zones; Alaska to Newfoundland, south to Washington, Idaho, Michigan and New Hampshire. Type locality: "not seen to the northward of Great Slave Lake."

Family 33. LORANTHACEAE.

Mistletoe Family.

Evergreen shrubs or herbs, parasitic on shrubs or trees and absorbing food from their sap through specialized roots (haustoria). Stems dichotomously branched, swollen at the joints and bearing opposite thick coriaceous entire exstipulate leaves, foliaceous or reduced to connate scales. Flowers dioecious, regular, clustered or solitary, small and greenish. Petals none. Calyx-tube adnate to the ovary, 2-5-lobed. Stamens equalling the calyx-lobes and inserted ui>on them; anthers 2-celled or confluently 1-celled. Ovary inferior, 1-celled, 1-ovuled; style simple or none; stigma 1. Fruit a berry. Seed solitary with glutinous testa and copious endosperm; embryo straight, terete or angled. About 21 genera and 500 species, widely distributed, most abundant in tropical regions, where some are terrestrial. .Anthers 1-celled; pistillate calyx 2-lobed; berry compressed. Anthers 2-celled; pistillate calyx 3-lobed; berry globose. 1. Kasoumofskya. 2. Fhoradcndron.