EPIPHYTE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does epiphyte mean? 

• EPIPHYTE (noun)
  The noun EPIPHYTE has 1 sense:

1. plant that derives moisture and nutrients from the air and rain; usually grows on another plant but not parasitic on it

  Familiarity information: EPIPHYTE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• EPIPHYTE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Plant that derives moisture and nutrients from the air and rain; usually grows on another plant but not parasitic on it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Synonyms:

aerophyte; air plant; epiphyte; epiphytic plant

Hypernyms ("epiphyte" is a kind of...):

flora; plant; plant life ((botany) a living organism lacking the power of locomotion)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "epiphyte"):

Clusia insignis; waxflower (epiphytic clusia of British Guiana)

black moss; long moss; old man's beard; Spanish moss; Tillandsia usneoides (dense festoons of greenish-grey hairlike flexuous strands anchored to tree trunks and branches by sparse wiry roots; southeastern United States and West Indies to South America)

aeschynanthus (a plant of the genus Aeschynanthus having somewhat red or orange flowers and seeds having distinctive hairs at base and apex)

hemiepiphyte; semiepiphyte (a plant that is an epiphyte for part of its life)

strangler; strangler tree (an epiphytic vine or tree whose aerial roots extend down the trunk of a supporting tree and coalesce around it eventually strangling the tree)

Derivation:

epiphytic (of or relating to epiphytes)