A late Halloween Photo

I mentioned this plant a couple months back, and thought this would be a good time to post it, as yesterday was Halloween.  This is the aptly-named Ghost Flower plant.  It is a plant, not a fungus, however it does not photosynthesize as it does not contain chlorophyll.  It is a parasitic plant which grows on certain fungi.  Those fungi grow on the shallow roots of certain trees (usually beech).  So the trees provide nutrients to the fungi, which then pass nutrients on to the Ghost Flower.  That is indeed an actual pollen-producing flower on the end of the stalk, and when it is pollenated the entire plant turns pink.  Another case of real life being much stranger than anything you could possibly make up!