Variations on Lifeforms

I was walking around my yard today and ran into a few plants that I thought have never seen before. I used my google image finder to discover what they were.  The first one (shown above) is called claytonia perfoliata, or more commonly known as miner's lettuce or winter purslane  It is a flowering plant in the family of Morntiaceae.  I have now read up all about it, and it does have green leaves, and it was the green leaf variety that I have seen before, but those leaves and stems will turn this strange pinkish yellow color if there is too much sun and a lack of water.  They are edible, but I will pass on tasting it this time.  It is an annual plant native to the western mountain and coastal regions of North America.

Below, another plant, only a few feet away, is shown below.  It is called pterospora andromedea, also commonly known as woodland pinedrops or giant pinedrops.  They appear as a tall redish-purple plant

that often resembles emerging asparagus spears.  It produces a cluster of small, nodding, bell-shaped flowers that can range in color from white to creamy-yellow or reddish. The stems are noticeably sticky to the touch due to glandular hairs that excrete a sticky substance.  Pinedrops lack chlorophyll and therefore cannot perform photosynthesis. This gives them their non-green, "ghostly" appearance. 

Pinedrops are mycoheterotrophic plants. Instead of making their own food from sunlight, they derive nutrients through a parasitic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. These fungi are themselves connected to the roots of nearby coniferous trees, typically pine trees

Pinedrops are found in moist to dry shaded coniferous or mixed forests across North America.  They are often found in small clusters and may not appear above ground every year, only emerging when environmental conditions are ideal. 

The world is almost infinite in the variations of its life forms.  All we have to do is open our eyes and look around to see this.