Fringed Pine Sap
Pleuricospora fimbriolata
Flowers beginning to fruit....
July 3, 2012 Update: July 17, 2012…flowers have been pollinated and it's now fruiting!
Hodgdon Meadow Campground
As I walked through the forest within the Hodgdon Meadows campground, something light in color caught my eye. I turned and walked towards it, then crouched on my knees to get a closer look. What I saw surprised me. It was a cream colored plant, totally lacking chlorophyll, pushing through the duff on the forest floor. This was not an individual, but 6 or 7 little plants, each having a striking resemblance to snow plant in structure (not color, as the Snow Plant is a brilliant shade of red). As I took a closer look, I saw movement. There were 2 large bees crawling from flower to flower, and down into the ground underneath the chunks of forest duff that had been pushed up by the plant during it's emergence. What a delightful scene, that I might have passed right by with out a second glance on my way through the campground. According to Botti in the Illustrated Flora of Yosemite National Park, Fringed Pine Sap is a sparingly occurring saprophyte in Yosemite, which grows at elevations of 1200-2450 meters in the dry forest humus in the mixed conifer and montane zones.
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July 26, 2012
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Last updated: August 4, 2012