Striped Coral Root in the Mt.Bigelow forest in the Santa Catalina Mountains — Image by kenne
Those of us who weekly hike in the Santa Catalina Mountains frequently turn to Frank S. Rose’s field guide to the Santa Catalina Mountains, Mountain Wildflowers of Southern Arizona. On Friday’s hike, some of the hikers recognized this plant a coral root, a relatively rare plant in the Catalinas, we did verify our finding in Frank’s guide.
Like most orchids of genus Corallorhiza, they have no chlorophyll and are mycoheterotrophic, making use of fungi to obtain carbon from the roots of nearby trees.
— kenne
