It’s been a wet summer here in Maine.
Yesterday we walked through the woods to our secret wild blueberry patch (so we could make wild blueberry sangria, of course) and found, amongst all the wild mushrooms on the forest floor, these crazy little flowers.
Google tells me these are called ghost plant or, somewhat less romantically, corpse plant or Indian pipe. They have no true leaves and no chlorophyll; instead of using photosynthesis like a proper plant, they have a complicated relationship with beech trees and/or fungus (Google is a bit unclear on whether or not they’re parasites).
The flowers are a translucent white until they’re fertilized, when they turn pale pink and stand straight up.
Proving that, even in the plant work, virginity is boring.
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