Beechdrops

Beechdrops

Epifagus virginiana

Beechdrops is a perfect name for this little plant.  It is parasitic on American Beech trees and only lives around the base of these trees.  It's as if the beech trees dropped them there.

The picture above is of a wildly blooming stand of these plants!  That's all there is to them.  I've walked by them a hundred times and never even noticed them until someone pointed them out.  They pretty much look like dead twigs coming out of the ground.  To find them you have to just look around the base of every beech tree you come across and eventually you'll find them.

Upon closer examination, they're pretty little plants with cream and purple striped flowers.  Definitely worth a look.



The flowers are very small and non-descript.

The plants just look like twigs coming up out of the ground.

Beechdrops don't look like much of anything. You really have to examine the area underneath the Beech trees to find them.