coolthingoftheday: Pholisma sonorae, also known as sandfood,...

coolthingoftheday:

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.

(Source)