EPIPHYTE (Neo-Lat., from Gk. tirt, epi, upon pttrov, phyton, plant, from ovecP, phyein, to produce). A plant which is mechanically, but not physiologically, attached to another plant. Such a plant derives its food chiefly from the air, getting no parasitic nutrition from the plants on which it grows, and hence it is often called an air-plant. Epiphytes are peculiarly character istic of the tropical evergreen forests. Certain families, particularly orchids, ferns, and brome lias, are rich in epiphytic forms, and many tree trunks in the tropics are covered with a luxuriant growth of vegetation; even the leaves are some times clothed with lichens. In the temperate and cold regions of the globe. epiphytes are for the most part restricted to lower forms of plant life, that are able to endure cold or drought without Injury, especially mosses, lichens, liverworts, and some forms of alga..
The adaptations of tropical epiphytes are among the most striking of the plant kingdom. There are all degrees of epiphytism, as there are of parasitism, and Schimper has named the va rious types as follows: •Protoepiphytes' are but little different from soil plants; in fact, they rep resent soil plants that are often found growing on trees. 'Hemi4iphytes' are plants which are
at first true epiphytes, but which later send down soil roots and become soil plants (like some spe cies of Ficus). 'Nest epiphytes' are those which gather humus and water in various ways. 'Cis tern epiphytes,' of which the bromelias are the type, are the most complete epiphytes of all, the roots being merely holdfast organs, so that all ab sorption is through the leaves. Many forms. especially the orchids, have well-developed storage organs, consisting of the swollen stems. Indeed, not alone in these storage organs, hut also in the thick skins and in the stomatal adaptations, do epiphytes resemble xerophytes (q.v.) in struc ture. The illustrations on the plate of orchids give a good idea of the character of epiphytic growths. In each case a branch has become the home of a varied growth without in any way contributing to the food of these plants or suffering from their presence. See ORCHID.