I recently heard the Indian pipes were blooming in a rich, mature woodland in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, so I went to photograph them.  Indian pipes (Monotropa uniflora) are strange-looking herbaceous woodland plants.  Indian pipes are named for their flowering stalks’ resemblance to the white pipes made out of kaolin clay that were common during the early colonial period in the Americas.

A kaolin (white clay) pipe used in colonial America.

The only time we really see Indian pipe is when their flowering stalks emerge from underground so they can be pollinated and produce seeds.

A single stemmed Indian pipe blossom emerges from the underground plant.

Indian pipe is also known as ghost plant or corpse plant.  This small plant that may grow as a single stalk or a group of stalks appears strange because it has no chlorophyll – the pigment that makes most plants green.  Chlorophyll is also the chemical that helps plants use solar energy to convert nutrients to sugars.  Since Indian pipe does not have chlorophyll, it has to get its energy from another source.

Indian pipes are parasitic!  Technically, they are a myco-heterotoroph.  That means that Indian pipes get their energy from a fungi.  Specifically, they get their energy from a fungi that has a mycorhizal relationships.   Mycorhizae are fungi that are symbiotic with roots.  In this case, the fungi help trees roots efficiently absorb water, phosphorus and other nutrients.  The tree gives the fungus carbohydrates.  So the Indian pipes attach themselves to a fungus that gets its energy from a tree – so Indian pipes indirectly get their energy from other plants.

A clump of Indian pipe on the floor of a rich, moist woodland.

Indian pipes are an ericad – meaning they are related to our blueberries, huckleberries, rhododendrons, and azaleas.  This is a little more understandable when the flower of an Indian pipe is compared to the flower of a tree sparkleberry (winter huckleberry).  The fruit of Indian pipes are capsules that more closely resemble rhododendron.

Indian pipe blossom.

Winter huckleberry blossoms.

A clump of Indian pipe with some fresh blossoms and some capsules already split to disperse their seeds.

Rosebay rhododendron capsules split.

Indian pipe can be found in almost every state in the United States of America except for a few states in the central southwest and Hawaii.  It has a sister species, Dutchman’s pipe (Monotropa hypopitys) that I was lucky enough to spot in one of those southwestern states.

Dutchman’s pipes are relatives of Indian pipes.