Non-Green Plants (2013) | Hacker News Reader

Non-Green Plants (2013)

plantsandprejudice.wordpress.com

97 pointssillybilly15 comments

I remember seeing quite a bit of disturbing imagery when researching mycotrophic plants (which get nutrients from soil fungi and frequently don't have any cholrophyll). Maybe it's because they lack the usual green and leafy identifying features of plants. Some of them are bordering on the nightmarish.

Hydnora africana is mentioned in the article: https://www.google.com/search?q=Hydnora+africana&tbm=isch

Monotropa uniflora: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/49477-Monotropa-uniflora

Hydnora had an obvious influence in Dune, IMAO

For some reason, I just made the connection to the flowers of Minas Morgul, whose description I always loved. Now I can confirm, there are definitely some mycotrophic plants on the foothills of Mordor:

"Wide flats lay on either bank, shadowy meads filled with pale white flowers. Luminous these were too, beautiful and yet horrible of shape, like the demented forms in an uneasy dream; and they gave forth a faint sickening charnel-smell; an odour of rottenness filled the air."

On the other hand, there are non-plants that are green and have chloroplasts. I cultured them from pond water in high school Biology. Interesting creatures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena

Seaweed has chloroplasts and is multicellular, but many species aren’t plants or green. Nature is diverse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_algae

Though, these days they're technically not plants. Red and brown algae have been moved out of the kingdom of Plantae, as they are believed to have developed photosynthesis independently.

If I could edit out that first sentence, I would. You already mentioned that. My apologies.

Here's an interesting parasitic plant that you can find in the Bay Area:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuscuta_californica

It's so bright orange that at first I wondered if it was spray paint left behind from construction. There's loads of it around the Bay Trail behind Google.

Another example is the "Indian pipe", Monotropa_uniflora. It's completely white, and very beautiful. It is a myco-heterotroph, getting its food through parasitism upon fungi rather than photosynthesis.

I learned about this recently from a Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't youtube video, searching for rare ferns on Mt Shasta: https://youtu.be/h0Eor4YaO2U?t=541

The narration is mildly NSFW, depending on which part of the video you watch; the video footage itself is 100% SFW.

I learned about the CPBBD channel from a HN post a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041193 -- he's a very sharp botanist and his coarse language and heavy-duty Chicago accent all make for entertaining videos.

After moving to Southern California I stumbled across these while hiking in the mountains. At first I was sure that they were a fungus. Turns out, they're a plant. Red, parasitic, plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcodes

Edit: Another similar plant which grow all around where I grew up in Maine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora

Medical herbalist, Yarrow Willard enthuses about these 'saprophytes' in this video[1] Many will find his outlook completely fanciful ( he says they are nervines of the forest) but I think its positive and he is experienced in ways.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI8s01q0Ojk

Doing some reading through wiki about non-green plants I came across thermogenic plants. Not only can some plants exists without chlorophyll, some can also regulate their temperature.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermogenesis

Squawroot is another oddly beautiful parasitic plant. It relies on the roots of living trees for sustenance.

White asparagus are just sprouts that have never seen the sun.

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