Potential Hypopitys lanuginosa

Hello!

I started up this project as a way to to start pulling together observation of Pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys) that fit the description for Hypopitys lanuginosa. I hope that others will find this useful and interesting. If you do, please help by contributing records that fit the description of H. lanuginosa to the project when you add records or are identifying records of others. When the perennial discussion of taxonomic disagreement comes up on those records, consider passing on the word of this project and its eventual companions for the other forms.

I think the mycoheterotrophs are really fascinating plants and have some particular interest in the local pinesap. I was really excited when I discovered iNaturalist to look up what I knew as Hypopitys lanuginosa and Hypopitys monotropa. That was actually my first introduction (from some very helpful folks on this site) to the taxonomic complexity within Monotropa/Hypopitys. Wow!

I feel there are still a number of reasons to have some way to view the different forms within iNaturalist's Monotropa hypopitys. Some of these reasons are pretty simple, such as that natural variation is just interesting, particularly when you have something like a crimson plant and it's of general interest to sort through this variation when it presents with distinct characters.

I also think there are more pragmatic reasons to sort out the records. There's a fair bit of evidence (see below) that there are multiple species within Monotropa/Hypopitys and there is a potential conservation value to identifying distribution, relative abundance, etc. iNaturalist also provides a truly amazing opportunity for range-wide comparison and I think this is remarkably valuable for things like these potentially cryptic species. We actually have the opportunity to really look at constancy of traits across different forms or species, such as phenology (e.g., timing of flowering), flower morphology, and coloration where they overlap or across the range of one form/species. This could actually facilitate learning more about the distinction of these forms. Additionally, some states or conservation programs still have conservation statuses for Hypopitys species. For example, H. lanuginosa is an S1 (extremely rare) in RI and on the state botanical watch-list for Massachusetts.

Anyway, I hope that this project is both useful and interesting for others excited by Monotropes. I will be creating companion projects for other forms (i.e., potential species) including the brilliant crimson Hypopitys sanguinea of the SW US and Mexico and probably a combined Hypopitys americana/monotropa (for the northern and midwestern forms described by Broe in 2014). I had to create this as a traditional project rather than a collection project in iNaturalist because tags and fields cannot yet be used for collection project filtering (to my knowledge). As you go through Pinesap records, please consider helping sort them out by adding to this or the other relevant projects. I'll include links on this project as they are created.

Here are a couple very helpful references for learning more and separating out Pinesap records in iNaturalist to various forms/species.
https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/hypopitys/lanuginosa/
Broe, 2014: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1417442819&disposition=inline
Klooster and Culley, 2009: https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.3732/ajb.0800319

I'll follow up soon with another post about some useful definitions or boundaries for considering which records/observations to add to which form (or none at all for dried, brown individuals, etc.). However, I think the looser the better on some of those definitions and hopefully that will help clarify some boundaries. Please do take a look at the references above and they'll help a lot.

For now, here's a really brief summary from the very helpful Broe dissertation linked above:
"In summary, considered as a single species—as it was previously by a number of scholars—or as a single genus, Hypopitys exhibits a wide variety of color forms. But in the context of the molecular phylogeny, some order at least is introduced to this most polymorphic character: red stems with yellow bracts in the late-blooming species in the east; pure red stems and bracts in the southwest and Mexico; deep salmon to orange stems with pale bracts in the North; and monochromatic yellow to pale salmon stems in the Midwest and East s.l. We suspect that as careful observation of the range of color and its progression through the season is correlated with the molecular species, even this confusing character may obtain better resolution."

And some invitations to those who have seemed interested in this issue on various observations and discussions: @er1kksen , @apgarm , @mycoweise , @socogonzalez , @davidenrique

Cheers!
Jake less ↑