Cheilotheca crocea L.Wu & Yan Liu
This species was collected in 2010 from Damingshan National Nature Reserve north of Nanning, China. This is considerably far apart (2200 km from C. malayana, 1600 km from C. khasiana) from the locations of its closest relatives, taking into account that Cheilotheca spp.
Voyria alvesiana E.F.Guim., T.S.Mendes & N.G.Silva
This is the so far youngest Voyria species, collected from Floresta Nacional de Carajás about 200 km southwest of Belém/Pará in Brasil and described in Guimarães et al.(2018). The species strongly resembles the widespread V. tenella, also sharing the pair of pedicellate nectariferous glands at the base of the ovary. However, the glands are flabellifform in V.
Monotropastrum kirishimense Suetsugu
This species has been collected several times, but was often treated as the color variant of Monotropastrum humile coined as M. globosum f. roseum in Honda, M. (1957: Scientific names of plants of Japan. Kousei-sya, Tokyo (in Japanese, not seen, cited after Imamura & Kurogi 2003)), later transferred to M. humile f.
Families and genera statistics
Four species of MHP occur in Bryophytes. Two species in the genus Aneura (Aneuraceae) and two species in Buxbaumia (Buxbaumiaceae).
One species of gymnosperms, Parasitaxus usta (Podocarpaceae) is mycoheterotrophic and parasitic at once.
Burmannia unguiculata Averyanov
Burmannia unguiculata is described in Averyanov (2005) from limestone grounds in northern Vietnam. Together with its closest relative B. coerulea it is endemic to its type locality. B. unguiculata differs from B. coerulea by its smaller size (5 - 10 cm vs. 10 - 20 cm), lighter colour of stems, scale leaves and flowers (more blueish in B.
Introduction
In order to answer the question in the title right away:
- 2 families, 2 genera and 4 species of Bryophytes,
- 1 Gymnosperm,
- 6 families, 26 genera and 283 species of non-orchid monocots,
- 44 genera and 325 species in Orchidaceae
- 3 families, 18 genera and 51 species of eudicots.
This sums up to
13 families, 91 genera and 664 species of mycoheterotrophic plants. (12th of December 2022)
For more specific statistics see here
Mycoheterotrophic plant species (MHP, Leake 1994) lack chlorophyll and depend on their mycorrhizal fungus for carbon and nutrient supply. MHP were first counted by Johow (1889), who estimated 160 species of “achlorophyllous humus plants” in 43 genera and 5 families. Schmucker (1959) already counted 352 “holosaprophytic” species in 48 genera and 6 families. Furman and Trappe (1971) referred to “roughly 400 species”, 50 genera and 7 families. In an review on MHPs Leake (1994) lists 417 MHP species in 87 genera and 11 families. My own preliminary reassessment of Leake's list in 2008 resulted in 438 species/84 genera/10 families, but was just a rough estimate. Merckx (2013), in his introducing chapter to the first book exclusively dedicated to MHP (Mycoheterotrophy - The Biology of Plants living on Fungi), rates: "At least 514 species of angiosperms and a single liverwort species entirely depend on fungal carbon during their complete life cycle".
This website aims to provide a list of all mycoheterotrophic plants on earth, combined with additional information such as synonymy, taxonomic history and bibliography. This account is now complete, as far as it came to our knowledge (Stephan Imhof and Jakob Zoller). We appreciate every hint on newly described species or taxonomic changes we might have overseen.
The criterium to be included in this list is "optical achlorophylly" or at least nearly such. We are aware of intergrading dependences on the mycorrhizal fungus even in green plants (see the pages The case of Pyrola aphylla, Obolaria and Bartonia or Stemona aphylla), as well as of different amounts of chlorophyll content (e.g. several Burmannia spp., Polygala setacea or Salomonia ciliata), which often is even hidden by other colouring compounds (e.g. Neottia nidus-avis).
Under the flag 'Mycoheterotrophic Plants' you find a taxonomic tree, where synonyms appear ahead of the accepted taxa, each of which in alphabetic order. The flag 'Literature' collects the bibliographic data of the taxonomic literature mentioned, as well as other articles dealing with all aspects of mycoheterotrophic plants (1862 references so far). The citations in the taxonomic comments (pages) are hyperlinked with the bibliographic data. You find the taxonomic comments under the flag 'Descriptions' when choosing a species name in the taxonomic tree 'Mycoheterotrophic Plants'.
If you want to cite this website we suggest the following pattern: Imhof, S. (year accessed): Mycoheterotrophic plants - How many of them are there? Accessed at mhp.myspecies.info on date xx.xx.20xx.
If you want to cite a particular page/article I suggest: 'Author of the article' (year of the article): 'Title of the article'. In: Imhof, S. (year accessed), Mycoheterotrophic plants - How many of them are there? Accessed at mhp.myspecies.info/node/xxxx on date xx.xx.20xx.
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Recent Pages
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Stephan Imhof - 2022-12-21
This species was collected in 2010 from Damingshan National Nature Reserve north of Nanning, Chi
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Stephan Imhof - 2022-12-12
This is the so far youngest Voyria species, collected from Floresta Nacional de Carajás
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Stephan Imhof - 2022-12-06
Recently Added Literature
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Stephan Imhof - 2022-12-08
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Stephan Imhof - 2022-12-07
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Stephan Imhof - 2022-12-07
Recent Media galleries
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Scratchpad Team - 2013-04-23
Pictures of MHP