Ghostly Ménage à Trois

Ghost Plant Monotropa uniflora

Ghosts! White, translucent, fleshy, and covered with scales nodding in a spooky little group under a tree. It has been 15 years since I saw my last apparition of these plants. What a surprise and rare delight to find these haunting the Garden Brae. Who knows when I will get a chance to write about them again?

What I learned from a Ménage à trois with Ghost Plants :

Forest trees depend on a symbiotic relationship with the fungi at their feet

• Forest trees are like a sugar daddy to fungus by providing carbohydrates to the fungus
  

• Fungus in turn give a little TLC to trees in the form of N-P-K and H2O by providing nutrients and water to the trees

Enter in to this happy relationship the usurping pretty little Monotropa uniflora

• Monotropa uniflora insinuates itself into the intimate relationship of the forest tree and fungus

• The ghostly little flower sneaks sugar from the tree intended for the fungus and filches nutrients and water from the fungus intended for the tree.

Current belief is that Monotropa uniflora is a selfish partner and gives nothing in return to tree or fungus in this relationship - that is what makes Monotropa a parasitic plant.

Whereas, it was once thought that Monotropa was saprophytic which fed on dead or decaying vegetation. (Is there a test at the end of this, or what?)

What is the relationship of the tree and fungus you ask?
- Why, it is a mutualistic symbiotic association, ofcourse! - because both tree and fungus gain mutual benefit from each other.

This fascinating plant is the subject of intense study lately to discover its potent hormonal system that sucks sugars away from fungus for its own successful survival.

* * *

Genius Loci thought: Is my relationship to my garden parasitic, saprophytic or mutualistic?

Photographing Ghosts In The Garden

Monotropa uniflora

Photographing Ghosts in the Garden is creepy if you consider the subject in the lens is found only in dark woodlands and is known by such morbid names as:

Convulsion Root
Corpse plant
Death plant
Fairy smoke
Ghost flower

Here, on the Island, we mostly call it Indian Pipe (in reference to its pipe-like shape). And far from creepy, I find it a fascinating and cheeky little plant whose ménage à trois existence between trees, fungus and itself is more than a a little beguiling. A botanist's description of the plant as "a waxy white saprophyte of deep forest shade" is ooooh so hauntingly lovely! It evokes a film noir femme fatale as spoken by a hard boiled detective like Bogie or Mitchum as Marlowe...

"... she 'was a waxy white saprophyte of deep forest shade' that haunted the mind of every man in the room. She was a flower alright, a ghost flower, and that spelled corpse plant to the man who did her wrong. And that ain't no fairy smoke to a tough gumshoe like me."