Indian Pipe

Hunter’s Point is home to many rare, unusual and endangered plant species. This beauty is Indian Pipe, an actual flower. It starts out white, turns pinkish then darkens until eventually black. The plant is an unusual type of parasite. It does not get its nutrition directly through tree roots, but from an intermediary connection with a mycorrhizal fungus. The fungus transfers some of the photosynthate it derives from the tree roots to the Indian pipe. What a relationship!