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Vent: saw a ghost pipe plant in Michigan and now I'm second guessing everything I know about plants
So last week I was hiking this trail near Traverse City, Michigan with my sister and we came across a whole patch of ghost pipe plants, like 20 of them just poking up through the leaf litter. I'd read about them but never seen one in person and they look fake, like little white wax figures. My sister actually grabbed one to show me up close and I had to tell her to put it down since they're super fragile. Here's the thing though, I always thought plants need sunlight and chlorophyll to live, but these things have zero green on them. I went down a rabbit hole later that night and found out they basically steal nutrients from fungi that are hooked up to tree roots. It's like a three way deal underground that I still don't fully get. I'm trying to figure out if I can grow them in my backyard since I've got a bunch of oak and pine, or if this is one of those things you just can't fake. Anybody here ever tried messing with parasitic plants or should I just leave it to the forest?
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