User:Aramblas/Sarcodes

Sarcodes is the monotypic genus of a north-west American flowering springtime plant in the heath family (Ericaceae), containing the single species Sarcodes sanguinea, commonly called the snow plant or snow flower. It is a parasitic plant that derives sustenance and nutrients from mycorrhizal fungi that attach to tree roots. Lacking chlorophyll, it is unable to photosynthesize. Ectomycorrhizal (EM) symbioses involve a mutualism between a plant root and a fungus; the plant provides fixed carbon to the fungus and in return, the fungus provides mineral nutrients, water and protection from pathogens to the plant. The snow plant takes advantage of this mutualism by tapping into the network and stealing sugars from the photosynthetic partner by way of the fungus. This is known as mycoheterotrophy. The snow plant is host-specific and can only form relationships with the ectomycorrhizal Basidiomycete Rhizopogon ellenae. As a result, the snow plant is classified as a parasite.

The plant's aboveground tissue is its inflorescence, a raceme of bright scarlet red flowers wrapped in many strap-like, pointed bracts with fringed edges, themselves bright red to orange in color. These red flowers are tightly packed together, which creates a bell-shaped figure. The brightness of the flowers attract insects that help release the flowers' pollen to be dispersed.

The snow plant's underside consists of white, knotted roots that consist of fungi. These fungi are where the snow plant receives water and nutrients from the conifer forest litter that the plant grows nearby. The fungi in the roots also expand out to extract nutrients from pine roots and other surrounding plants. The Sarcodes sanguinea has flowers with a narrow opening that point up and down. Inside the flower of the snow plant consists of a large white ovary that consists of seeds. There also includes the stamens, which ultimately release pollen. The pollen is then able to escape through the holes of the stamens. The fruits of the snow plant initially is colorful and plump. However, once matured, the fruits become dry and shed. The outside of the fruits become dry, while the inside of the fruit is still plump and white. The seeds of the snow plant had rough edges that must be buried in leaf litter in order to sprout.

Sarcodes sanguinea is native to montane areas of the California Floristic Province, from the Oregon Cascade Range (as far north as the Umpqua River), through the mountains of California including the Transverse Ranges (though it is absent from the California Coast Ranges between the Klamath Mountains), and into the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir range of northern Baja California. Its bloom time is between the months of April, May, June, and July, and tends to be found in amorphous part of soils near coniferous woods at altitudes between one thousand to three thousand meters. The snow plant also favors the nutrients of forest litter.

Its species epithet sanguinea refers to the striking red flower that emerges from the sometimes still snow-covered ground in early spring or summer; this may be as late as July in high elevations, such as those of the High Sierra Nevada and Cascades. The genus epithet Sarcodes comes from the Greek sarkódes (σαρκώδες), meaning "fleshy". It is believed that the snow plant sprouted thorough the snow. However, in reality the Sarcodes sanguinea only sprouts up when the snow is melted or almost all melted. These plants tend to grow in batches, forming a small colony and can reach heights of twelve inches.

According to botanist James L. Reveal, S. Sanguinea is edible, if cooked.

History
Reportedly the first account of Sarcodes sanguinea, John Torrey's Plantæ Frémontianæ is a result of the collection of Sarcodes by John C. Frémont in the Central Valley, north of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, in the area of the Yuba river in 1853. In Plantæ Frémontianæ, Torrey gives a detailed description of Sarcodes and provides the first figures of the plant. Torrey came up of the name as he referred to the Greek word "sarkodes" and the Latin word "sanguinea". He also incorrectly states that Sarcodes is unique to California. Another early report of S. sanguinea is attributed to Gaspard Adolphe Chatin whose 1862 description did not differ from Torrey's.

In Writing
In 1930, Mary Vaux Walcott, an American artist that specialized in her watercolor paintings of wildflowers, painted the Sarcodes sanguinea using watercolors. Walcott later donated this watercolor paining to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Due to its unique and striking appearance, coupled with its relatively limited geographic distribution, Sarcodes sanguinea has been a popular subject of various California naturalists. In his 1912 book, The Yosemite, famed nature writer John Muir wrote a description of Sarcodes; "The snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea) is more admired by tourists than any other in California. It is red, fleshy and watery and looks like a gigantic asparagus shoot. Soon after the snow is off the ground it rises through the dead needles and humus in the pine and fire woods like a bright glowing pillar of fire. In a week or so it grows to a height of eight or twelve inches with a diameter of an inch and a half or two inches; then its long fringed bracts curl aside, allowing the twenty- or thirty-five-lobed, bell-shaped flowers to open and look straight out from the axis. It is said to grow up through the snow; on the contrary, it always waits until the ground is warm, though with other early flowers it is occasionally buried or half-buried for a day or two by spring storms. The entire plant – flowers, bracts, stem, scales, and roots – is fiery red. Its color could appeal to one’s blood. Nevertheless, it is a singularly cold and unsympathetic plant. Everybody admires it as a wonderful curiosity, but nobody loves it as lilies, violets, roses, daisies are loved. Without fragrance, it stands beneath the pines and firs lonely and silent, as if unacquainted with any other plant in the world; never moving in the wildest storms; rigid as if lifeless, though covered with beautiful rosy flowers."In 1939, former University of California, Berkeley professor William Whittingham Lyman Jr. published a poem book called California Wild Flowers, in which he dedicated a poem to "The Snow Plant"; Are you a blood red hyacinth Transported strangely To these cold Sierra solitudes? But hyacinths have leaves, While you are leafless, And thick and waxy And blood-red everywhere. Who would suppose That the delicate tinted heather Is your cousin?