A Peculiar Plant

All normal, self-respecting plants photosynthesize.

This process uses energy from sunlight to transform water and carbon dioxide into glucose.

Glucose is an energy source for plants, and a building block for making complex compounds (such as cellulose) which plants use to build their bodies. Chlorophyll - the chemical that plants use to capture energy from sunlight - reflects green light. That's why plants are green.

A cluster of vampire plants.

A few plants have shunned photosynthesis and become vampires instead.

Ghost pipe (Monotropa uniflora) is one of these plants.

It steals food from trees, although not directly. Ghost pipes needs fungi to help them feed.

Most trees have a symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi, which grow on roots and help plants absorb water from the soil. In turn, plants provide sugars to the fungus. Myco is Latin for 'fungi', while rhiza is Greek for 'root'.

Ghost pipes use their own roots to tap into mycorrhizal fungi, and steal the tree's sugars which were meant to feed the fungus.

Because they don't photosynthesize, ghost pipes no longer need leaves or chlorophyll - so they don't waste energy making them. The leaves are little more than scale-like stubs, and without chlorophyll, the plants are a ghostly white rather than green. Some individuals have a pinkish hue.

A ghost pipe flower.

Ghost pipes are easy to mistake for fungi, but if you look closely, you'll find that the plant's stem ends in a single flower, which is turned downward.

The scientific name translates as 'one turn one flower'.

Bumblebees are a common pollinator, along with other bees and flies.

After pollination the flowers turn upright, become pod-shaped, and release tiny seeds into the wind.

Flowers have turned on their stems.

Ready to release seeds.

Wikipedia references a delightful Cherokee legend featuring ghost pipes:

A group of chiefs were quarreling while passing around a pipe. Unfortunately for them, the passing of the pipe was supposed to signify peace - not continued arguing. The Great Spirit was angry that the chiefs were disrespecting the pipe ceremony, and so he turned them into pipe-shaped plants. From that day on, ghost pipes are said to grow wherever friends have quarreled.