Pholisma sonorae, also known as sandfood, are a bizarre species of plant found mainly in the arid desert regions of Arizona, California, and Colorado. Because it lacks chlorophyll (meaning that it doesn’t have the ability to produce its own food), sandfood plants are actually parasites, attaching themselves to various desert shrubs in order to gain nutrients. Remarkably, the host plants do not seem to be harmed by this process.
Sandfood are extremely rare due to increasing habitat loss.
Read & Learn:
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/pholisma.htm
#botanics #sandfood #plants
I had never heard of these. Time to go exploring!
ReplyDelete(ooh, rather than 'Colorado' it's 'Colorado desert', which, alas, isn't in Colorado. Drat.)
Goodness , I wonder if you can cook and eat them ? #sandfood
ReplyDeleteThe Cocopah tribe of the Sonora and Baja used this as a food staple . My guess is that the root was mashed into a flour ,guessing at this point...
ReplyDeleteUmmm...you and your recipes gordon hoselton . Too delicate to eat them...they look precious ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing Miss Corina....
ReplyDeleteahhhh, the vagaries of life , my precious , but only in hunger could your delicacy consume me., oh, goodness, Am I backwards again, +CorinaMarinescu , you make me smile.....
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