The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Monotropa
Also called Ghost Plants, Indian Pipe, Ghost Pipe, Indian Pipes
Monotropa is a genus of five species of herbaceous perennial flowering plants. The genus was formerly classified in the family Monotropaceae and presently classified in Ericaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere and are generally rare. Unlike most plants, they do not have chlorophyll and therefore are non-photosynthetic; they are myco-heterotrophs that obtain food through parasitism on subterranean fungi. Because they do not need any sunlight to live, they can live in very dark sites such as the floor of deep forest. The name "Monotropa" is Greek for "one turn" as every plant has one large turn near the top of the plant to a drooping tip when the plants are in flower. The type species is Monotropa uniflora.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Monotropa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
