I don't think it's a flower.
Looks like a fungus to me but I can't remember the
name just now and haven't the time to look it up.
"Indian pipe" something or other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora

Wow! From that wiki entry it looks like you have a very rare find. Doesn't sound like something you can pick up in your local nursery or even grow at home without a botany lab. Lucky you :)

It's not particularly rare, it's just that it requires the perfect site. You would not expect to find it for sale at a nursery or in a typical home landscaping. I've seen pastures full of it.

It is a plant, not a fungus. But it's unusual in that it does not get its energy from the sun.

Wow, it's gorgeous! May I ask where I could see pastures of it?

I've never seen large groupings of it but maybe it happens.

Indian pipes are common here. We have lots of them,
but I am always in awe of them when I see them.

We have bioluminescent fungus that glows green in the dark.

Lovely photo! Your find is Indian Pipe. It has no clorophyll, so it will be white, as your example, or it may be rosy. It is a saprophyte...it cannot produce its own food, so it lives off dead and decaying plant matter in the soil. Constrast with a parasite, which gets its food from living plants.

This year I have found more of these on my property than ever before. Must be a result of all the things that died a couple of years ago in the droughts. I like 'em!

It was once thought that Indian Pipe was saprotrophic but it is now known that this plant is a myco-heterotroph. That is, it parasitizes fungi that live on the roots of other plants. In this case the fungi are ectomycorrhizal, associating with the roots of trees. This is why it can only be found growing in woodlands.

This plant is, actually, related to blueberries and other members of that group.

Great photo of a cool plant. I've heard young children call this "ghost plant". That always makes me smile and seems like a fitting name even when I know the "correct" name.

"Indian Pipes rise like a company of wraiths in the dim forest that suits them well...how weirdly beautiful and decorative they are!" - Neltje Blanchan (1917)

Indian Pipe (or Corpse Plant) was the first subject of a blog I'm keeping. Read the rest of Blanchan's fabulous description here:

http://obscurevations.blogspot.com/2009/03/indian-pipe-or-corpse-plant.html