Bear Poop Flowers at Philmont
Channel: Sean Anderson
Date: 2019-08-02

We found many of these flowers growing out of black bear dung on the trail between Zastrow and Abreu in late July of 2019 on Philmont Scout Ranch.

I later identified the flower as squawroot (Conopholis mexicana), a broomrape (Orobanchaceae).  Squawroot is saprophytic in this mixed conifer forest community here in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the southern Rocky Mountains of New Mexico.