Freaky Little Plant Pollinated By Freaky Little Freaks

In Okinawa's coastal forests, brown puffballs protrude from roots of trees like unwanted warts. Although they might appear to be mushrooms, the balls are plants. To be more specific, they are fruits. To be even more specific, they are clusters of up to a million fruits that each encase a tiny seed, fruits made larger and more dazzling by their proximity to each other, fruits designed like pavé diamonds. But Balanophora fungosa, also known as fungus root, is not strange because it looks like a mushroom, or even because it has an unreasonable number of fruits. It is strange because it has no chlorophyll with which to photosynthesize, and it has no roots with which to drink water. Instead, the fungus root survives by parasitism, entrenching itself on the roots of trees. In other words, it's a freaky little plant. Petra Svetlikova, a plant researcher at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, said as much in a statement: "It’s a fascinating example of how something so strange can evolve from an ancestor that looked like a normal plant with leaves and a normal root system." The plant in question.

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