Non-photosynthetic plants discovered after 150 years

Thismia neptunis plants live in the ground, get nutrients from mushrooms and only rise over a few weeks a year to bloom.

A group of scientists from the Czech Republic published a study on the discovery of this rare species Treemia neptunis in Gunung Matang, west of Sarawak state, Malaysia, 2017, Science Alert yesterday reported. T. neptunis was first discovered in 1866. At that time, the Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari happened to encounter this plant blooming in Gunung Matang. The flower part of this plant is about 9cm tall.

The research team from Czech found Thismia neptunis tree in Malaysia.(Photo: Sochor et al).

Rare plant species have many unusual characteristics.(Photo: Sochor et al).

"The hard-to-detect appearance of Thismia neptunis may somehow make us not know much about how this plant is distributed, because it is easy to ignore them. As far as we know, this is only the second time this species can found , "the team shared. They produced an additional revised description, including internal features as well as the first image of this plant.

Thismia neptunis is not only rare but also possesses some strange characteristics. They belong to a group of plants that specialize in mushrooms as a source of nutrition instead of using sunlight. They do not need chlorophyll, no leaves, do not even need photosynthesis.