优山美地之 Snow Plants

生活在加州，我们得以慢慢游加州。

每年初春到夏季，优山美地不同海拨地区的山林间可以见到雪地里冒出来的雪草，一种鲜红色的植物。这种没有绿叶，并不依靠光合作用而生存的植物，吸引了我的视线。

查资料，它是这样说的：

雪草属是杜鹃花科 (Ericaceae) 中一种美国西北部春季开花植物的单型属，包含单一物种雪草属 (Sarcodes sanguinea)，通常称为雪草或雪花。它是一种寄生植物，从附着在树根上的菌根真菌中获取营养。由于缺乏叶绿素，它无法进行光合作用。外生菌根 (EM) 共生涉及植物根部和真菌之间的互利共生；植物为真菌提供固定碳，真菌则为植物提供矿物质营养、水和保护，防止植物受到病原体的侵害。雪草利用这种互利共生，进入网络并通过真菌从光合作用伙伴那里窃取糖分。这被称为菌异养。雪草具有宿主特异性，只能与外生菌根担子菌Rhizopogon ellenae形成关系。

 

优山美地官网的视频，非常详细介绍了 Snow Plants。很喜欢这个制作精良的视频，优美如诗的意境。

我对Snow Plants 最感兴趣的地方，除了惊艳之外，据说它生长的位置附近都会有机会找到兰花，见识山谷中的野生兰花，我的梦想之一。

Snow Plants 见过，野生兰花还在期盼中。

有梦，真好！

 

维基百科的资料再摘一段：

Due to its unique and striking appearance, coupled with its relatively limited geographic distribution, S. 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 fir woods like a bright glowing pillar of fire.... 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.... 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.