NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1253394
18 Nebraskaland • June 2020 IN THE FIELD A ghost plant haunts the deep woods on the Missouri River bluff in southeastern Nebraska. Translucent white in color, the plant has forgone photosynthesis and taken up thievery to obtain its food. Its appearance and lifestyle are indeed strange. Also called Indian pipe, ghost plant (Monotropa uniflora) can be found in deciduous and coniferous fo re s t s t h ro u g h o u t much of Canada and the United States, including Alaska, but is never common. This perennial plant lacks chlorophyll, explaining why the entire plant is white, except for occasional black flecking. Its unbranched stems grow singly or in clumps and have reduced, scale-like leaves. Each stem is topped by a single urn-shaped flower, a characteristic of the blueberry family to which the plant belongs. These appear July through September. Each flower blooms for a week or two, after which the stem withers, gradually turning black, while the dry, papery seed capsule forms. Relatively few plants have no chlorophyll and obtain their nutrients through means other than photosynthesis. In Nebraska, only the ghost plant, its close relative pinesap and four coral-root orchids obtain water and food through associations with soil fungi. Broomrapes and dodders insert their roots into the stems or roots of other plants to steal nutrients and water. From an early age, a ghost plant's roots, which are clustered into a short, circular mass, are infected by specific soil fungi. The fungi spread web-like through the soil, also infecting the roots of nearby trees. They feed by breaking down and ingesting soil organic matter and by taking sugars, produced through photosynthesis, from tree roots. In this mutually beneficial relationship, the fungi assist the tree roots with the intake of water and nutrients from the soil. By allowing its roots to be infected, the ghost plant tricks the fungi into believing they have entered into another beneficial association, but in reality, the fungi gets nothing in return. In simpler terms, the ghost plant is stealing from both the fungi and the trees: It gets water and nutrients from the fungi, and the fungi act as an intermediate to transfer sugars from the trees. We know this through studies that have shown radioactive marked carbon injected into the vascular tissues of trees later showing up in sugars in ghost plants. Because it associates with a variety of fungi, which associate with a variety of trees, ghost plant grows under many tree species. Indifferent to sunlight, ghost plant often dwells in the deepest, darkest corners of the woods, where it survives as a clever, though uncommon, thief. Gerry Steinauer is a botanist for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. By Gerry Steinauer GHOST PLANT: A THIEF IN THE WOODS When ghost plants emerge from the soil, the young flowers point downward and are not flower-like in appearance. At this stage, the plants somewhat resemble white fungus. As they mature, the flowers become more upright.