Hidden by the shadows of Asian woodlands, strange growths can be seen peeking out from between the leaves.
The symbiotic mycorrhizae that connect most forest plants into a wood wide web is one of the reasons many other plants consider friends.
Monotropastrum humile was thought to be a single species, which it is. Researchers from Japan and Taiwan have discovered a pink-colored species called Monotropastrum kirishimense.
Wood wide webs act as highways for delivery of food as well as wires for transferring information between plants. Resource dispersal from the poor to the rich areas of the network helps strengthen the forest. Plants are able to warn each other of predatory animals and help protect them from the effects of a dry spell.
Plants pay their fungi allies with some of the hydrocarbons they produce in exchange for these services.
Monotropastrum betrays this mutualistic relationship by stealing all of its resources from the fungi and giving no products to the network in return.
The researchers note that there are other differences in the Japanese variant.
The plant's roots are barely visible in the soil. M. humile favors a different variety of fungi than they do.
Despite being next to each other, M. kirishimense has a different flowering season than M. humile. phenology is a study of the interactions between wildlife and physical forces on earth.
In their paper, Kenji Suetsugu and colleagues conclude that the taxon is a distinct species and should be recognized as one.
There is a chance that a host shift in M. kirishimense could lead to ecological speciation.
The bumblebee Bombus diversus can't give one species the other's pollen because of their different flowering seasons.
Many of the world's forests are under threat and as Monotropastrum species rely on old-growth forests, they are vulnerable to extinction as well. Researchers think that M. kirishimense is likely to be extinct.
The journal of plant research describes the new plant.
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