Rising from the forest floor in a ghostly array of pale, slender stalks, Ghost Pipe (Monotropa uniflora), AKA Indian Pipe, is a forest floor denizen both beautiful and extraordinary. Many people mistake it for a fungus because It lacks chlorophyll. For many years, botanists argued over how it gathered nutrients. It's range stretches almost continent-wide, but its not always easy to find. In this episode, the guys hit the trail and delve into the backstory of this elusive and mysterious beauty.
This episode was recorded on July 12, 2020 at the East Otto State Forest in East Otto, NY.
Episode Notes:
During the editing process for this episode, Bill shared some posts about this species via social media. Several listeners commented that, in an effort to acknowledge problematic botanical names, many sources now refer to this plant as Ghost Pipe. So, although it was too late to re-record the episode, Bill altered these notes to reflect the name change.
Several times in the episode, Steve and Bill wondered if a stand of Monotropa uniflora was composed of separate plants growing closely together or if it was a single plant with multiple stalks rising from a common rootstalk. In doing follow-up research, Bill could not find a conclusive statement, but in going through pictures of herbarium specimens, drawings of harvested plants, and numerous descriptions, every instance showed each Ghost Pipe stalk having its own, single bundle of roots at its base. So, for now, Bill is going out on the proverbial limb and saying that each stalk is an individual plant. **Update - Aug. 23,2021 - Thanks to listener Jo Stormer for sharing a 2009 study looking into the reproductive ecology of Ghost Pipe and a few of its relatives. The paper makes reference to how “multiple reproductive stems may be produced per plant, each stem containing one to many flowers.” So, Bill was wrong. Again. Check out the paper here.
The guys questioned whether Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana) was in the Ericaceae family, along with Ghost Pipe, and Steve went on to say that he thought it might be in the Broomrape family – Orobanchaceae. He was correct!
Bill mentioned that Steve is now a published researcher. He was one of the authors on a paper looking into how plants evolve certain chemicals. Check out an article about the paper here, and here’s a link to the paper, itself.
Bill mentioned that, although Monotropa uniflora seems extraordinary because it lacks chlorophyll, “there are some 3000 species of non-photosynthetic vascular plants in the plant kingdom (about 1/2% of all vascular plants). Steve wondered aloud if this number was greater than all the gymnosperms out there (non-flowering plants, like pines). Steve was correct again! There are roughly 1000 extant species of gymnosperms.
Steve questioned what you call an animal that feeds on sap. According to Wikipedia, it’s a gummivore. Gummivores are a hybrid class of omnivores that defines a group of animals whose diet consists primarily of the gums and saps of trees (about 90%) and bugs for protein.
Steve mentioned that there are trees in the Gentian family, and then he went on to joke about whether or not there are any woody orchids. Well, Bill checked. There aren’t any.
Links:
Bill mentioned the book, The Honest Herbal. You can check it out on Amazon here.
Sponsorship of this episode provided by Gumleaf Boots, USA
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As always, check out Always Wandering Art (Website and Etsy Shop), who usually provides the artwork for our episodes!
Works Cited:
Bahle, A., Blanchett-Anderson, S. and Miley, M., 2017. A survey of Monotropa and tree associations on the University of Michigan burn plot chronosequence.
Knight, F. and Sanchez, A., 2017. NY Flora Association Quarterly Newsletter.
Neyland, R. and Hennigan, M.K., 2004. A cladistic analysis of Monotropa uniflora (Ericaceae) inferred from large ribosomal subunit (26S) rRNA gene sequences. Castanea, 69(4), pp.265-271.
Norland, M. and Norland, M., 2011. Proving: Indian Pipe (Monotropa Uniflora).