Snow Plant

Habitat:

It grows in conifer forests of California, and portions of western Nevada and northern Baja California.

Notes:

These are part of a group of non-green flowering plants that is related to the heaths (blueberries, cranberries, rhododendrons). They are a parasitic plant - but in an unusual way. They are parasites on fungi, we can call them mycoparasites. But they don't kill the fungi. The fungi infect the short, stubby roots of the monotropoids, and transfer food and water into the roots. The fungi live in the dense litter of dead leaves in wet forests.