Bastard-toadflaxes
What are they?
Bastard-toadflaxes (in this instance the word means 'false' or illegitimate) are currently placed in the family Santalaceae along with mistletoe, though they perhaps couldn't be more different but for the fact that they are both semi-parasitic on other plants. The bastard-toadflaxes are mostly low-growing root parasites, found among species-rich, short grass plant communities on chalky soil. Their rather small size can make them difficult to spot but the star-like, five-petalled flowers are distinctive once known.
Where are they found?
Our only species was once far more common in chalky grassland but is now almost extinct in East Anglia and becoming very rare in the UK as a whole, probably due to both abandonment of traditional grazing, resulting in shading out of plants by more aggressive species, and agricultural 'improvement' which turns species-rich areas into a monoculture of grass. Though unlikely to return to many of its former haunts, this plant may yet appear again in chalky areas, especially in the Newmarket area.
Identification
The yellowish-green colour of the alternate, narrow leaves and the stiff, white-petalled flowers, straggling among other plants are distinctive.
Western Bastard-toadflax Thesium humifusum
Native but very rare and perhaps now at just a single site in Cambridgeshire, on chalky grassland. Flowers June to August. One of the real gems of good quality chalk grassland, growing semiparasitically on a range of low-growing, herbaceous plants.
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