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Yellow Bird's-Nest

Yellow Bird's-Nest

Hypopitys monotropa

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How common: Common

Yellow Bird’s-Nest is a small, pale forest plant that has no green color at all. It gets all its food through fungi in the soil that connect it to nearby trees, often pines. The plant may appear suddenly in groups after rainy weather and can be easy to miss among needles and leaf litter.

Did you know?

  • The stiff, dried stem with its seed cases often stands through winter into the next summer.
  • Although pale and waxy, it is a flowering plant that relies on fungi instead of sunlight for energy.

About the species

Identification

A 15–25 cm tall plant with a thick, upright, scaly stalk and no green leaves. The whole plant is yellowish white, sometimes pinkish to red. Several drooping, narrow bell-shaped flowers hang along the stalk; each about 1.5 cm long and built of 4–5 segments. After flowering the stalk lengthens and the dry seed cases stand upright; old brown stems often remain over winter. Not to be confused with ghost plant (Indian pipe), which is pure white and usually has just one flower per stem. Flowers in Finland in late summer, July–August.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

heath forest

Flowering

Jul–Aug

About the habitat

Grows on the floor of dry to fresh woodland, especially conifer forests, on sandy ridges and in hollows among rocks; sometimes also in rich, leafy woods. Fairly common in southern and central Finland; absent from Lapland.

Sources

Photo: Leonhard Lenz, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monotropa hypopitys in Örebro län 03.jpg

Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Gagea-Hepatica, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38641

Text: Pinkka: IPS-177 Fennoscandian flora - Hippophaë-Lythrum, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38641

Text: Pinkka: Plants of Taiga Excursion - All species, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38641

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangasm%C3%A4ntykukka

See also