Typically defined by their autotrophic nature, plants are known for their ability to use photosynthesis via their chloroplasts to survive. This is pretty well-known and undisputed– even a kindergartner could tell you that plants are green and feed from the sun! But what if I told you there were plants out there that didn’t do this? Dun dun dun!

Although not many species have this feature, some plants actually don’t have chlorophyll pigments. The one in particular I want to tell you about today is called the Ghost Pipe Plant (Monotropa uniflora). This plant is a type of mycoheterotroph, which basically means that it feeds off of fungi rather than using the sunlight or other sources for sustenance. For the most part, they stay underground unless they are trying to seed.

It looks like this:

From what I could find, M. uniflora usually comes in white, as shown on the left, but has pink and red colorations, as well. It also appears that some can have black splotches on them, which is more common as they age. They live in North America, South America, and Asia, but some non-confirmed sites say they can be found in Europe, too. According to the U.S. Forest Service, they like shady, moist spots in woody areas. I’m not 100% on this, but it seems that to tell a M. uniflora apart from others in the Monotropa genus, the number of flowers per stalk and the color play a role. I mean, uni-flora/one-flower does make sense.

This bit of info also only applies when comparing Monotropa, by the way. The Japanese native Monotropastrum humile looks uncannily similar, but it’s not even in the same genus! I looked into this a bit, and it appears that the type of fungi they have relationships with and variations in flowering times help differentiate them. I included a pretty map from the flowering time study below.

When I started writing this late at night, I believed with conviction that those simply *must* be the same species, so I wrote a rather frantic email to a PhD candidate I know and asked about this very issue. Genetics alone don’t determine a species, but things like pollen make-up, if they can produce fertile offspring, geographic boundaries, and very slight differences in seemingly insignificant ways do. So, I must defeatedly end this Monotropa/Monotropastrum issue here. If I get a chance to look into this further, I’ll update this or make a new post about it. Now, I just need to find one in person seeing as they’re apparently native to the area I live.

Happy reading,
-Beppa