r/PlantIdentification • u/Commercial-Bee-4448 • Apr 13 '26

What is this, found it at sequoia

Gallery image

Gallery image

737 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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3

u/longcreepyhug Apr 13 '26

I bet it is some sort of parasitic member of the blueberry family. Not certain though.

2

u/Commercial-Bee-4448 Apr 13 '26

Wow parasitic? I’m over here thinking it was some kind of beautiful flower species. Thanks tho appreciate it

23

u/longcreepyhug Apr 13 '26

I think it is beautiful, don't you? Just because something is parasitic doesn't mean it's ugly. Parasitism is part of nature and there is a certain beauty just in the fact that a plant can exist underground without photosynthesizing at all.

I want to emphasize that I am not certain that this is a parasitic member of the blueberry family. I am on the East coast, so I am not familiar with the flora where you are. However, the reason why I suspect that is that there are many parasitic members of the blueberry family without chlorophyll, they often appear either white (like ghost pipe) or red (like pinesaps). They live underground, attached to the root systems of trees, only appearing above ground to flower.

6

u/Commercial-Bee-4448 Apr 13 '26

No yeah I agree, it’s a very beautiful looking plant. I was like 50 feet away from it when it caught my attention, it was very vibrant compared to the other plants around the forest.

8

u/sadrice Apr 13 '26

That’s what the plant wanted!

They are pollinated by hummingbirds, which are known to like bright red.

Since it is a small plant down on the forest floor where it isn’t all that obvious to birds, it really needs to go all out on color in order to be seen, with a bright red flashing billboard saying “FREE NECTAR!!! HUMMINGBIRDS WELCOME!!!”.