Plants of the Day

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John Wyndham

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That reference may be too obscure for some folks.

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https://www.anonews.co/internet-discovers-that-a-phallic-looking-penis-flytrap-exists-in-remote-forests/

I’ll give you guys some time to guess what this is:

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No one? From a couple of weeks ago, same thing different place:

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Slime mold?

Nope. I thought they would be some sort of fungus, but yesterday a guy told me what they were and showed me some around the trail I was doing. They aren’t fungus but my guess wasn’t that off, I will explain why later.

some kind of saprophytic orchid?

Nope!

Ghost pipe.

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Correct.

It is very interesting. When I saw it, I initially thought that it was some sort of fungus. However, it is a plant… but a plant symbiotic with some fungus. It doesn’t produce energy with chlorophyll, instead, it gets the energy from the fungus which also has some sort of symbiosis with the trees under which this plant grows (the fungus helps the trees to get water…?).

I don’t think I have explained it very well, so I’m going to quote the wiki:

Unlike most plants, it is white and does not contain chlorophyll. Instead of generating energy from sunlight, it is parasitic, more specifically a mycoheterotroph. Its hosts are certain fungi that are mycorrhizal with trees, meaning it ultimately gets its energy from photosynthetic trees. Since it is not dependent on sunlight to grow, it can grow in very dark environments as in the understory of dense forest.

Myco-heterotrophy (from Greek μύκης mykes , “fungus”, ἕτερος heteros , “another”, “different” and τροφή trophe , “nutrition”) is a symbiotic relationship between certain kinds of plants and fungi, in which the plant gets all or part of its food from parasitism upon fungi rather than from photosynthesis. A myco-heterotroph is the parasitic plant partner in this relationship. Myco-heterotrophy is considered a kind of cheating relationship and myco-heterotrophs are sometimes informally referred to as " mycorrhizal cheaters ". This relationship is sometimes referred to as mycotrophy , though this term is also used for plants that engage in mutualistic mycorrhizal relationships.

A mycorrhiza (from Greek μύκης mýkēs , “fungus”, and ῥίζα rhiza , “root”; pl. mycorrhizae , mycorrhiza or mycorrhizas [1]) is a symbiotic association between a fungus and a plant.[2] The term mycorrhiza refers to the role of the fungus in the plant’s rhizosphere, its root system. Mycorrhizae play important roles in plant nutrition, soil biology and soil chemistry. In a mycorrhizal association, the fungus colonizes the host plant’s root tissues, either intracellularly as in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF or AM), or extracellularly as in ectomycorrhizal fungi. The association is generally mutualistic, but in particular species or in particular circumstances, mycorrhizae may be variously parasitic in the host plants.

you’re right, it’s quite unusual.

originally i thought of this:
Phantom orchid

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image

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Interesting guy. Looked around the local potted plants but didn’t see any. I might go re-home it later

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Do you know what it is?

I recently pulled a couple of ferns that were growing from cracks in the concrete, and one seems to be surviving.

After germinating some plants from seeds, and not having a lot of direct sunlight, my current idea is to focus on “re-homing” ferns and grasses that catch my eye.

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It seems to be some kind of succulent. You can see it propagates by those offshoots that grow from the ends of the leaves. I might just grab some of those

I brought back a bunch of the plantlets, seems to be going well

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