And God does. Behold the Indian pipe, Monotropa uniflora. (And, yes, I had to look that up.) It is a member of the heath family, like a blueberry, but it is a saprophyte -- having no chlorophyll to manufacture its own food, it gets all its nourishment from decaying matter on the forest floor. I found this group of flowers under a maple tree near the swale behind our garage. The photo really doesn't do them justice -- up close, they look as if they have been sculpted from wax, touched here and there with the merest hint of mauve.
"Stop and consider the wondrous works of God."
Monotropa uniflora
4 comments:
Let me do my best Californian . . .
"Wowwwwwww!" ;-p
Seriously, those are amazing (and kudos to you, LC, as photog)
A funny story about my supposed photographic prowess...I have an old (relatively), first-release Mavica camera with a floppy disk drive. It took great point-and-shoot pictures with no effort on my part. One day, about a year or so ago, I dropped it -- on a carpeted floor that turned out to be cement underneath -- and ruined the viewfinder; now all you can see are light and dark. I kept using the camera, though, because I liked it -- even used it at work;-) -- I'd look through the Rorshach-like splats on the viewfinder, cross my fingers and click the shutter. And the photos were exactly the same quality as they were when I wasn't aiming blind. LOL So it's not me; it's the camera.;-)
But thank you! And to think it's the only cluster of them around! I was really fortunate to find them at their peak.
I saw a lot of these on a camping trip I took last month, and I had no idea what they were. They are remarkable little plants, aren't they?
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