this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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There's also an extremely tiny percent of plants that are entirely white, they don't get their energy through photosynthesis but instead a parasitic relationship of fungi and other plants.
Mycoheterotrophs! Love them, such bizarre little plants
I was so disappointed when I learned how hard (I mean I haven't actually tried it) to culture them, but it makes sense given how they occur.
Yeah I wouldn't try that in a million years, you need, like, an actual functioning ecosystem for them to flourish
partial and fully mycoheterotrophic orchids are fascinating. at least 1 kind is native to North america with many species(corallhiza, trifida being the most common since its a partial mycoheterotroph), gastrodia seems to be the most species rich MH.
they keep finding new thismia species(1 supposedly existed in america a century ago, but became extinct. the rest lives in South east asia, china, india, and australia area. they refind at least 2 thismia that went extinct but was found again in another area(T.kobensis, and T. neptunis). i find thismia the most fascinating one.
and South america has thier own thismia(its alleged that this is a different genus related to thismia), recently they seperated the African variety into its own family status.
Albino plants are a thing, but they usually are attached to the main plant where they came from. albino redwoods is an example. fully parasitic plants usually dont have leaves or have a small nonfunctional ones. some parasitic plants is exist as filaments inside a host(no stem no, leaves whatsoever)(rafflesia, pilostyles). the most famous is miseltoe, which is hemiparasitics, as it can sitll fully photosynthesize.