Pinedrops, Listed S2

Spent an amazing four day (three night) road trip down to SE Alberta with two friends, from 20-23 September 2013. Our furthest destination was Elkwater in the Cypress Hills, but we did a lot of driving all over the SE part of the province. All new territory to me, so I was extremely lucky to get this chance. We were all thrilled to bits to be taken to see these Pinedrops, which none of us had ever seen before, by a delightful young woman. We had met her the previous day, on a trip with people from Medicine Hat College to see and monitor an area of Yucca plants growing in the wild. The tallest Pinedrops plant that we saw was just over 1 metre tall! Unfortunately, we were too late to see the plants in bloom.

"The visible portion of Pterospora andromedea is a fleshy, unbranched, reddish to yellowish flower spike (raceme) 30-100 cm in height, though it has been reported to occasionally attain a height of 2 meters. The above-ground stalks (inflorescences) are usually found in small clusters between June and August. The inflorescences are hairy and noticeably sticky to the touch. This is caused by the presence of hairs which exude a sticky substance (glandular hairs). The inflorescences are covered by scale-like structures known as bracts. The upper portion of the inflorescence has a series of yellowish, urn-shaped flowers that face downward. The fruit is a capsule. Like all members of the Monotriopoidiae (see Monotropa), Pterospora andromedea lacks chlorophyll (trace amounts have been identified, but not enough to provide energy for the plant or to color it). Plants exist for most of their life as a mass of brittle, but fleshy, roots. They live in a parasitic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi, in which plants derive all their carbon from their associated fungus, but the relationship is not yet well understood. The term for this kind of symbiosis is mycoheterotrophy." From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterospora