This plant grows in the highland oak forests of the Talamanca mountain range in Costa Rica, at about 2700m altitude. While I don’t have a positive ID on the photo, the plant most likely belongs to the family Monotropaceae, the Indian Pipe family. Some taxonomists consider Monotropaceae a subfamily of Ericaceae (this was the family featured in my last post, which contains blueberries and cranberries).
Most monotropes are mycoheterotrophs. This means they parasitize fungi. In some cases, these same fungi parasitize the roots of other plants. For this reason, monotropes are often called ‘epiparasites’. Monotropes cannot photosynthesize on their own and depend entirely on fungi for nutrients and sugars. Moreover, there is evidence that monotropes are specialized, in that each species can parasitize only a narrow range of fungal species (Cullings et al. 1996, Kretzer et al. 2000).
The structure pictured here is called an inflorescence. It consists of a compact group of small white flowers. It is the only part of the monotrope that can be seen above ground. Like fungi, the monotropes spend most of their life cycle underground and only emerge for the purpose of sexual reproduction.
This plant from Costa Rica closely resembles Pleuricospora fimbriolata, the fringed pinesap, which is found in pine forests on the west coast of the United States.
References:
Cullings, K.W., T.M. Szaro and T.D. Bruns. 1996. Evolution of extreme specialization within a lineage of ectomycorrhizal epiparasites. Nature 379:63 – 66.
Kretzer, Annette M., Martin I. Bidartondo, Lisa C. Grubisha, Joseph W. Spatafora, Timothy M. Szaro and Thomas D. Bruns. 2000. Regional specialization of Sarcodes sanguinea (Ericaceae) on a single fungal symbiont from the Rhizopogon ellenae (Rhizopogonaceae) species complex. American Journal of Botany 87:1778-1782.
Most monotropes are mycoheterotrophs. This means they parasitize fungi. In some cases, these same fungi parasitize the roots of other plants. For this reason, monotropes are often called ‘epiparasites’. Monotropes cannot photosynthesize on their own and depend entirely on fungi for nutrients and sugars. Moreover, there is evidence that monotropes are specialized, in that each species can parasitize only a narrow range of fungal species (Cullings et al. 1996, Kretzer et al. 2000).
The structure pictured here is called an inflorescence. It consists of a compact group of small white flowers. It is the only part of the monotrope that can be seen above ground. Like fungi, the monotropes spend most of their life cycle underground and only emerge for the purpose of sexual reproduction.
This plant from Costa Rica closely resembles Pleuricospora fimbriolata, the fringed pinesap, which is found in pine forests on the west coast of the United States.
References:
Cullings, K.W., T.M. Szaro and T.D. Bruns. 1996. Evolution of extreme specialization within a lineage of ectomycorrhizal epiparasites. Nature 379:63 – 66.
Kretzer, Annette M., Martin I. Bidartondo, Lisa C. Grubisha, Joseph W. Spatafora, Timothy M. Szaro and Thomas D. Bruns. 2000. Regional specialization of Sarcodes sanguinea (Ericaceae) on a single fungal symbiont from the Rhizopogon ellenae (Rhizopogonaceae) species complex. American Journal of Botany 87:1778-1782.
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