About Pleuricospora fimbriolata A.Gray
Pleuricospora is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). The genus contains only one species: Pleuricospora fimbriolata, which is commonly known as fringed pinesap. This species is native to forests along the west coast of North America, growing from British Columbia south to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a perennial herb and a mycoheterotroph that gets its nutrients by parasitizing fungi. It has no chlorophyll, so it is yellowish, cream, or white in color, and the tips of its bracts turn darker as they age. Above the forest floor leaf litter, the plant grows a fleshy, stemless peduncle that reaches no taller than 10 to 12 centimeters. Since the plant does not carry out photosynthesis, its leaves are reduced to scales or are completely absent. The only aboveground portion of the plant is essentially just an inflorescence that holds short-lived cylindrical whitish flowers. Each flower has four or five petals and roughly eight stamens in its throat. After flowering, the plant produces a fleshy berry less than one centimeter wide, which holds many tiny sticky seeds. Seeds are dispersed when small mammals eat the fleshy fruits.
