Indian Pipe Plant

With all of the mushroom blips and all of our recent rain, I thought I would go look for a mushroom blip. I walked the Osmanthus Trail at First Landing State Park. I did find some fungi but also saw a number of these interesting plants, monotropa uniflora.

The plant lacks chlorophyll and is a parasite. Indian pipe is not parasitic upon nearby trees, but rather fulfills its nutritional needs through the services of an intermediary, a mycorrhizal fungus. The fungus forms a connection with both Indian pipe and with nearby trees and transfers some of the photosynthate it derives from the tree roots to the Indian pipe.