Ghost Pipe (Heather Team Purple)

Sport this stylish graphic tee proudly and show your love for a species that makes the Blue Ridge Mountains so special!

With your purchase you are supporting Blue Ridge Discovery Center's mission to inspire curiosity, discovery, and stewardship through the wonders of the Blue Ridge.

This translucent, “ghostly” white, and sometimes pale pinkish plant has many common names such as Indian Pipe, Corpse Plant, Ice Plant, Ghost Flower and Ghost Pipe (Monotropa uniflora). At first glance, this mysterious plant may seem more like a mushroom or fungus than a true flowering plant due to its waxy texture and scaly stem. The ghost pipe, although a wildflower, gets nutrition a bit differently from its native counterparts. Unlike most plants that rely on chlorophyll (which gives plants their green color) to harness the sun's energy to make food, the ghost pipe forms a parasitic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi and saps nutrients from tree roots. Therefore, it is a nonphotosynthetic parasitic plant. The ghost pipe has intrigued many naturalists over the years, including American poet Emily Dickinson. Almost 200 years ago Dickinson called the ghost pipe “the preferred flower of life” and included the wildflower on the cover of her first book of poetry.