PLANT: Annual or perennial (in ours) root parasites, lacking chlorophyll. STEMS: fleshy, underground, white or brownish. LEAVES: scale-like, spirally arranged. FLOWERS: perfect, usually actinomorphic; calyx and corolla tubular, each with 4-10 lobes; stamens 4-10, as many as corolla lobes, borne on the corolla tube in 1-2 series; pistil with 5-16 carpels, each carpel with 210cules; style 1, stigma lobes 5-9, the ovary superior. FRUITS: capsules with irregularly circumscissile dehiscence, covered by the persistent perianth. SEEDS: 1 per locule, in a ring, more-or-Iess kidney-shaped, flat, brown. NOTES: 2 genera, 4 spp., sw U.S. to n S Amer, seldom common. Some spp. harvested by Indians for food. Yatskievych, G. and C. T. Mason, Jr. 1986. Syst. Bot. 11:531-548. REFERENCES: Yatskievych. George. 1994. Lennoaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27(2), 220-221.