Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicots

Order: Santalales

Family: Santalaceae -- sandalwood

Genus: Comandra

Species: umbellata

Variety: The Palouse phase is var. pallida.

Common Name: bastard toadflax

Species Code: COUM

Origin: The Palouse phase, var. pallida, is native to open areas from sagebrush steppe to open forest of most of western North America from southeastern British Columbia to southwestern Manitoba and south to Texas, excluding California.

Rare: no

Form: forb to subshrub, perennial from rhizomes, erect, 5-30 cm tall, stems clustered, glabrous and glaucous throughout.

Duration: perennial

Habitat Type: prairie

Wetland Indicator Status: not listed

Leaves: alternate, entire, subsessile to short petiolate, linear or lanceolate to oblong or oblanceolate, 5-40 mm long, thick, fleshy, glaucous.

Mature height: 2-12 inches

Flowers: perfect, apetalous, 3-7 mm long, borne in terminal clusters; calyx turbinate to campanulate with usually 5 white to purplish, spreading lobes, the lobes lanceolate.

Flower color: white sometimes purplish

Bloom: May, June

Bloom starts on: late May

Bloom ends on: mid June

Fruit: drupe, 6-9 mm, dry to fleshy, globose or ovoid, blue, purple or brown.

Characteristics:
C. pallida in St. John 1963, Piper & Beattie 1914, and Davis 1953.
The Palouse phase is var. pallida. Another phase, var. californica, ranges from California north on the west side of the Cascades and along the Columbia River Gorge. A third phase, var. umbellata, is found in eastern North America, overlapping with var. pallida, in the central part of the continent. The three intraspecific taxa are given subspecies rank by some authorities.
Reproduces sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.
Flowers are perfect, lacking petals, sepals are white.
Parasitic on the roots of many other plants (Moss 1926, Harrington 1945, Zentz & Jacobi 1989).
Not tolerant of deep shade (Zentz & Jacobi 1989).
x=13, 2n=26 for ssp. pallida (University of British Columbia 2003).
Fruit is a drupe which is said to be edible, but may accumulate selenium. Native peoples used the plant medicinally and some ate the seeds.
Rocky Mountain elk eat the plants in summer (Kufeld 1973).
Animals eat the fruit.
Vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal infections were found in the roots of Montana plants (Lesica & Antibus 1986).

Sun requirement: full to partial sun

Soil moisture: xeric

Hazards: Alternate host for a rust (Cronartium comandrae) which attacks Pinus contorta and P. ponderosa (Zentz & Jacobi 1989).

Sowing time: no information available

Transplant time: no information available

Stratification: no information available

Seed yield: no information available

Seed harvest: no information available

Seed first harvest: no information available

Seed cleaning: no information available

Planting duration: no information available

Seed harvest date: no information available

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Propagation:
Reproduces sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.
There is no information on seed germination pretreatment requirements. C. umbellata is a root parasite of other plants and should be sown near a suitable host.

Notes: Comandra umbellata is an interesting plant but don’t know whether it would grow in a garden. It is at least partially parasitic on other plants. Also an alternate host for a rust which attacks lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta). Common name is bastard toadflax (Skinner et al 2005).

References:
Davis, Ray J. 1952. Flora of Idaho. Wm. C. Brown, Dubuque, Iowa. 827 pp.

Harrington, H.D. 1945. Some Host Plants of Comandra umbellata in Colorado. American Midland Naturalist 34:797-798.

Holm, Theo. 1924. Comandra umbellata (L.) Nutt. American Midland Naturalist 9:1-13.

Kufeld, Roland. 1973. Foods Eaten by the Rocky Mountain Elk. Journal of Range Management 26:106-113.

Lesica, P., and R.K. Antibus. 1986. Mycorrhizal Status of Hemiparasitic Vascular Plants in Montana, U.S.A. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 86:341-343.

Moss, M.A. 1926. Parasitism in the Genus Comandra. New Phytologist 25:264-276.

Piehl, M.A. 1965. The Natural History and Taxonomy of Comandra (Santalaceae). Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Club 22:1-97.

Piper, C.V., and R.K. Beattie. 1914. The Flora of Southeastern Washington and Adjacent Idaho. Lancaster, PA: Press of the New Era Printing Company. 296 pp.

St. John, Harold. 1963. Flora of Southeastern Washington and of Adjacent Idaho. 3rd edition. Outdoor Pictures. Escondido, CA.

Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf

University of British Columbia. 2003. British Columbia Flora. University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research. Online at http://www.bcflora.org/ Accessed 1/1/06.

Zentz, W.R., and W.R. Jacobi. 1989. Ecology of Comandra umbellata (Santalaceae) in Western Wyoming. Great Basin Naturalist 49:650-655.

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium