Unlike most plants, they do not contain chlorophyll; they are myco-heterotrophs, getting their food through parasitism upon fungi rather than photosynthesis.
Nor do those examples complete the list of justifiably fuzzy distinctions in such matters; at the opposite extreme from parasitism, parasitoidy in turn grades into predation.
This extreme inquiline is represented only by female and pupoid type male individuals, whose morphology and anatomy indicate a highly specialized level of parasitism.
