Ghost Plants

Rare Corpse Plants or Indian Pipes as they are also known are now blooming in the moist, dark forests of the Great Smoky Mountains. They looks like fungi, but are in fact wildflowers without 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. It is often associated with beech trees. The complex relationship that allows this plant to grow also makes propagation difficult. It was one of poet Emily Dickinson's favorite flowers and strikingly graces the cover of a posthumous book of her poems.
Poem, ca. 1879
'Tis whiter than an Indian Pipe –
'Tis dimmer than a Lace –
No stature has it, like a Fog
When you approach the place –
Not any voice imply it here –
Or intimate it there –
A spirit – how doth it accost –
What function hath the Air?
This limitless Hyperbole
Each one of us shall be –
'Tis Drama – if Hypothesis
It be not Tragedy –

’Tis whiter than an Indian Pipe –
Poem, ca. 1879
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora
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Ghost Processional (Alternate) by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100219
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
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