Indian Pipe; Ice-plant; Ghost-flower;|
Corpse-plant
. (Monotropa uniflora) Indian-pipe family


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Flowers—Solitary, smooth, waxy, white (rarely pink), oblong-bell
shaped, nodding from the tip of a fleshy, white, scaly scape:
4 to to in. tall. Calyx of 2 to 4 early-falling white sepals; 4
or 5 oblong, scale-like petals; 8 or 10 tawny, hairy stamens;
a 5-celled, egg-shaped ovary, narrowed into the short, thick
style. Leaves: None. Roots: A mass of brittle fibres, from
which usually a cluster of several white scapes arises, Fruit:
A 5-valved, many-seeded, erect capsule.
Preferred Habitat—Heavily shaded, moist, rich woods, especially
under oak and pine trees.
Flowering Season—June—August.
Distribution—Almost throughout temperate North America.
Colorless in every part, waxy, cold, and clammy, Indian pipes
rise like a company of wraiths in the dim forest that suits them
well. Ghoulish parasites, uncanny saprophytes, for their matted
roots prey either on the juices of living plants or on the decaying
matter of dead ones, how weirdly beautiful and decorative they
are! The strange plant grows also in Japan, and one can readily
imagine how fascinated the native artists must be by its chaste
charms.
Yet to one who can read the faces of flowers, as it were, it
stands a branded sinner. Doubtless its ancestors were industri-
ous, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil, and digesting


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White and Greenish


it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chloro-
phyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some an-
cestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already di-
gested food of its neighbors ; so the Indian pipe gradually lost the
use of parts for which it had need no longer, until we find it to-day
without color and its leaves degenerated into mere scaly bracts.
