What in the Woods Is That?

Play our biweekly guessing game!

Whatever draws us into the forest—be it birdwatching or logging, hiking or hunting—all of us are unified by the sense of wonder we feel in the outdoors. The forests, fields, and streams of our region are full of mystery, and if you stop and look closely, you’ll see all sorts of oddities.

Below find a picture of one such woodlands curio. Guess what it is and you’ll be eligible to win a Northern Woodlands woodpecker magnet designed by artist Liz Wahid. A prize winner will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. The correct answer, and the winner’s name, will appear when the next column is posted and in our newsletter (sign up here!).

A Long Gaze

If you gaze long into a forest ... the forest also gazes into you. With apologies to Nietzsche, we found these eye-like objects staring back up at us from a rich northern hardwood forest floor in Thetford, Vermont. What are they?

Answer

These are the upturned, fertilized flowers of ghost pipe (Monotropa uniflora), also called Indian pipe, a non-photosynthesizing plant that draws its sustenance from mycorrhizal fungi, which in turn pull nutrients from trees. Once ghost pipe flowers have been pollinated, they turn upright, and the entire plant begins to darken. You can learn more about them in this Outside Story essay by Edna Greig.

This week’s contest winner was Anna Paritsky