This ghostly white plant is popping up in forests everywhere right now
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Phenology
If you've ever spotted a waxy white stalk pushing up through dead leaves in a shady forest and assumed it was a fungus, you were looking at Ghost Pipe, a flowering plant that steals its food from underground fungal networks instead of making it from sunlight.
Ghost Pipe looks nothing like a typical plant: it's pure white, has no green leaves, and grows in dark, shady spots where most plants can't survive. That's because it doesn't photosynthesize at all; instead it taps into fungal networks in the soil that are secretly connected to nearby trees, siphoning off sugars the trees made. Right now nearly a thousand people logged sightings of it in one week, which tells us it's actively fruiting and easy to spot across many regions.
Key Findings
970 research-grade observations of Monotropa uniflora were logged on iNaturalist in a single week
Ghost Pipe ranks among the most-observed plant species on the platform during this period
The species is mycoheterotrophic, meaning it derives nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi rather than photosynthesis
chevron_right Technical Summary
Ghost Pipe, a strange white plant that doesn't photosynthesize, is having a big moment on iNaturalist with 970 verified sightings logged in a single week, showing how many people are noticing this unusual woodland plant right now.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Trending: Ghost Pipe (Monotropa uniflora) — 970 observations this week
Ghost Pipe is among the most observed plant species this week with 970 research-grade observations.
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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