The Ghost Pipe

I remember walking through the forest and seeing some white bead/dew drop-shaped things on the floor beneath all the foliage. At first I thought it was a type of fungus so I knelt down and tapped it with my nail. It was hard like a crystal and I had no idea what it was so then I snapped a picture and sent it to my mom to see if she could find out what kind of plant, fungus, etc. it was. She didn’t find anything and so I checked in with my plant app and I still got no definitive answer. I eventually forgot about it until I went walking through the forest again and saw some white flowers beneath the foliage. After inspecting the flowers for a bit, I started wondering if they were the same white, crystal dew drops I saw before. I honestly still have no idea, but they look the same so I believe those white crystal beads are the first bloom of Ghost Pipe flowers.

Ghost Pipes are a genuinely very cool looking plant. They have quite a mystical vibe to them and are definitely not your average flower. As you can see in the pictures, it is clearly not green and therefore, has no chlorophyll so it can’t photosynthesize. Instead, it defaults to mooching off of fungi to get its nutrients, which makes it an absolute bum of a plant. The bumblebees seemed to love them though and it was really cute seeing their fluffy butts poking out.