Root parasite:
This group of pineconish growths are the inflorescences of Conopholis americana. They may look fungal,
but in truth they are produced by
a plant that spends most of its time underground as a parasite on the roots of trees. Weird, huh? These have just
emerged from the soft ground...give them a few days and flowers squirt out from behind those scales:
Then they will look like this.
People have given this cool plant
the unfortunate name of "cancer root." Unpleasant, yes, but not as bad (in my opinion) as the plant name
"finger-rot", or my all-time favorite ugly-plant-name, "broom-rape" (which is just
wrong!).
