Oregon Hikers

Curious for an ID on this plant.

I found it on the trail to Cape Falcon in Oswald West State Park off of Hwy 101 near Manzanita/Cannon Beach on Wednesday evening (6:30pm).

I have never seen anything like it. It was in a section TOTALLY devoid of sunlight. Not even any filtered light. It was growing in rotting stump debris at the side of the trail. The leaves are good for scale--stalks 4 to 8 inches in height. Single buds/blooms on the ends of stalks were 3/4 to 1 inch long.

(I'm a newbie and this is my first post here--be kind!!!)

At a glance, it looks like Indian Pipe Monotropa uniflora. It lives off fungi in the needles on the forest floor.

Cool stuff.


ps. Welcome to the site!

Brilliant. That's it!! Thanks.

Indian Pipe aka Ghost Plant.

FROM Wikipedia: "Unlike most plants, it is white and does not contain chlorophyll. Instead of generating energy from sunlight, it is parasitic, more specifically a myco-heterotroph. Its hosts are certain fungi that are mycorrhizal with trees, meaning it ultimately gets its energy from photosynthetic trees. Since it is not dependent on sunlight to grow, it can grow in very dark environments as in the understory of dense forest. The complex relationship that allows this plant to grow also makes propagation difficult."

There are a number of chlorophyll-less plants around. "Pinesap" is another you might run into. But yeah, that's indian pipe.

I saw 2 or 3 clumps of these ghost flowers on the Cape Horn Trail last Saturday. Didn't stop to take pictures and regretted it. So today when I saw more on the way up to Table Mountain, I stopped and took a picture.

I think this is the same Indian Pipe.

[quote="n.bumppo"]I saw 2 or 3 clumps of these ghost flowers on the Cape Horn Trail last Saturday. Didn't stop to take pictures and regretted it. So today when I saw more on the way up to Table Mountain, I stopped and took a picture.

I saw more of it on the Ramona Falls trail on Oct. 2. Near the base of this bluff.

I'm late to the party but I'll add this to our body of knowledge:

The subject of the original post is the indian pipe plant. Read about it here.

This week I was hiking on the Augsburger Mountain trail near Dog Mountain. I found a similar plant in a cool, steep, shady area. It was a phantom orchid. Read about it here.

Both rare plants are completely white, like fine porcelain. It's a real treat to behold.

Yeah, phantom orchids are pretty common around Dog Mountain. There's a reliable patch of them just beyond the 780' fork on the DM trail.