Little Mac

Day 222: Just as the buds were swelling last year, some varmint came along and nipped the top off little Mac, my "pet" Corallorhiza maculata, bringing her season to an untimely end. However, this year, she's sending up two stems, and I've put a low cage of chicken wire around her which should deter deer, if not slugs. I suspect last year's culprit was a deer or elk because the tip was cropped off about eight inches from ground level and in any event, slugs are something I don't see often in my yard (curious, that, but I won't complain). The Corallorhizas are mycoheterotrophic, i.e., they rely on a fungal partner to convert soil nutrients into a form the plant can utilize. Here, I want to add that there is again a raging debate about whether this is true mycoheterotrophy or a parasitic relationship in which the fungus gains nothing from its partner. One school of thought insists that it is parasitism, but to my way of thinking, it only looks like parasitism because we haven't figured out what the fungus is getting out of the deal. Since some Corallorhizas are very particular about which fungal partner they will accept, logic tells me that the relationship is agreeable going both ways or it would not persist. Despite our inability to determine what benefit the fungus derives, it doesn't necessarily follow that it derives nothing. That kind of closed-minded attitude in science leads down a dead-end road.