Southern Spain
At first sight this object, found in Punta Entinas-Sabinar Natural Area close to Almeria, looks like a displaced, fried snack. In reality, it is Cynomorium coccineum (also known as Desert thumb, Cipote, Jopo de lobo, ...), a rare plant species without chlorophyll, spending most of its life as an underground holoparasite, in the form of a rhizome, attached to -and completely depending on- the roots of its host plant. The low-growing inflorescence emerges in spring on a fleshy, unbranched stem with scale-like, membranous leaves. Dark-red or purplish, the inflorescence may be male, female or hermaphrodite. It is pollinated by flies, attracted to the plant by its sweet, slightly cabbage-like odour. Cynomorium is a parasite of salt-tolerant plants and occurs in Mediterranean regions of Europe and Africa, as far west as Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and as far east as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. A rare or local species, that grows in dry, rocky or sandy soils, often in salt marshes or other saline habitats close to the coast. It has had a wide variety of uses in European, Arabian and Chinese herbal medicine. © Tom Kisjes May 2012
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