Found growing on the Oregon California border near Klamath Falls. The root structure looks like ginger.

It looks like a saprophyte (no chlorophyll). Maybe a broomrape (Orobanche sp.)... Just getting the discussion going here. I don't know what the underground structure of these looks like. There must be hundreds of species of Orobanche so need to narrow it to what grows in that area.

https://beascout.scouting.org/...

It does resemble Orobanche, how about O. californica?

You can click to enlarge these images for comparison: http://plants.usda.gov/core/pr...