PLANT: Perennial, mycotrophic herbs, with bracteate white to yellow or reddish flowering stalks without green leaves. FLOWERS: perfect, actinomorphic, hypogynous, in racemose inflorescences; corolla fused or separate, petals 3-5(-6); stamens 6-10; anthers awned or not, dehiscing by longitudinal slits; pollen grains single; ovary 1, 4, 5, or 6-loculed; nectaries present. FRUITS: berries or loculicidal capsules. NOTES: 6 primarily monotypic genera of coniferous forests in w N. Amer. Wallace, G. D. 1975. Wasmann J. of Bio. 33:1-88. SEEDS: numerous, minute. REFERENCES: Haber, Erich. 1992. Monotropaceae. Ariz.-Nev. Acad. Sci. 26(1)2.