Greenish-yellow or brownish, smooth, fleshy; stems rather slender, numerous, and tufted, forked or branched into 4-angled jointed branches. Leaves reduced to opposite scales at the joints. Flowers very small, the staminate and pistillate on separate plants; staminate plants 2—4 inches long, with the flowers on terminal peduncle-like joints; pistillate plants much smaller and darker coloured; berries ovate, purplish-brown, ⅙ of an inch long. Throughout the Rockies, parasitic on Pinus Murrayana; locally abundant, appearing in midsummer. SANTALACEÆ _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. POLYGONACEÆ _Buckwheat Family_ Herbs and twining vines with alternate or sometimes opposite or whorled leaves, jointed stems and usually sheathing united stipules; flowers small, regular, perfect, monœcious, diœcious or polygamous; petals none, calyx 2—6-parted, the segments more or less folded over each other, sometimes petal-like; stamens 2—9 dilated at the base and distinct or united into a ring; ovary superior, one-celled with a solitary ovule.