Monotropa uniflora known as the Ghost Plant or Indian Pipe is a startling white color and is sometimes mistaken as a fungus. It is actually a flowering plant that has no chlorophyll. Surprisingly, it is part of the blueberry family. Both Native Americans and European settlers used this plant for medicine. The Ghost Plant or Indian Pipe plays a cultural role in American history as Native American tribes have passed down stories about this plant such as the Origin of the Indian Pipe by John Rattling-Gourd, a poem by Emily Dickenson titled "Tis whiter than an Indian Pipe" and a poem by Mary Potter Thacher Higgson called "Ghost Flowers."
About Indian Pipe
This waxy white plant grows in clusters in the shade of deep woods with a great deal of leaf litter. It is found throughout New England including Connecticut; it grows south to the Carolinas and west to Missouri. The stems are erect and grow up to a foot high, they are white, hairless, nearly translucent, and sometimes tinted pink. Each stem is terminated by a solitary drooping flower that resembles a shepherd's hook. The bell-shaped flower has four to five petals and ten to twelve stamens. The flowers are cross-pollinated by bumblebees, both the nectar and pollen are floral rewards. The blooming time lasts only a week. After it blooms, the plant begins to turn dark brown and the flower is replaced by an ovoid-shaped seed that is easily blown about by the wind after it splits.
Indian Pipes don't depend on light for photosynthesis and must get their food from an outside source. It is parasitic and lacks chlorophyll in its tissues; the root system is able to extract nutrients from fungal strands of certain kinds of fungi. Meanwhile the strands of the fungus tap into the host tree's roots. This is called a mycorrhizal relationship and these plants are classified as epiparasite. The Indian Pipe benefits from the mineral (especially phosphorous) uptake and the fungi benefit from the sugars translocated to the root by the tree. Both plants help each other out but the Indian Pipe doesn't give anything back to the fungus or the tree.
Medicinal Uses
The Cherokee mixed the sap of this plant with water and used it to treat inflamed eyes and to sharpen vision. The roots were made into a poultice and used externally to treat bunions, warts, and sores. The Mohegans use the stems and leaves, fresh or dried, as a tea for treating aches, pains, and fevers of common colds. The roots were used dried and powdered as a tea for treating convulsions, fainting spells, epilepsy, insomnia, muscular spasms, nervous irritability, and various female troubles. Water extracts were used as an antibacterial. The Cree and Algonkian peoples chew the flowers for toothaches. The Potawatomi made an infusion of the roots to treat female troubles. The Thompson dried the stems and applied the powder to sores or they would burn the stalk and rub the remnants on sores that would not heal.
Did You Know
Indian Pipe also had some edible uses. It could be eaten raw, roasted, or boiled. It is said to have a similar taste to asparagus.
The Thompson believed that an abundance of Indian Pipe in the woods indicated that many mushrooms would grow in the coming season.
America’s eminent poet, Emily Dickinson, called the Indian pipe “the preferred flower of life.” In a letter to Mabel Todd, she confides, “I still cherish the clutch with which I bore it from the ground when a wondering child, and unearthly booty, and maturity only enhances the mystery, never decreases it.”
There is a Cherokee legend about the Indian Pipe: Long ago, when selfishness first entered the world, people began quarreling, first with their own families and tribal members, and then with other tribes. The chiefs of the several tribes met together to try to solve the problem of quarreling. They smoked a peace pipe together while continuing to quarrel among themselves for the next seven days and seven nights. In punishment for smoking the peace pipe before actually making peace, the Great Spirit turned the chiefs into grey flowers and made them grow where relatives and friends had quarreled.
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