Missouri Botanical 
Garden Bulletin 
Vol. IV St. Louis, Mo., May, 1916 No. 5 
EPIPHYTIC PLANTS 
The establishment of a bromeliad house as part of the 
new plant range, recently completed at the Garden, warrants 
calling attention to the peculiar habit of growth of a num- 
ber of these plants which normally are not dependent on the 
earth for their existence but live as epiphytes. 
Epiphytic plants are those which spend all or the greater 
part of their existence upon other plants. In its broader 
sense the term would include such non-flowering plants as 
the fungi and the lichens, but usually it is limited to the 
higher, or the flowering plants, and it is so understood here. 
Epiphytes may be truly parasitic, i, e., completely depend- 
ent upon the plant upon which they grow for all nutrition, 
or the host plant may simply function as a support. Most 
epiphytes are of this latter type and obtain their mineral 
food, either from the dust particles of the air, or from the 
decaying vegetable matter which collects in their leaves and 
about their roots, while their water comes from chance rains. 
Such plants are very plentiful in moist tropical countries, 
_ and especially in forests where the heavy foliage overhead 
prevents sunlight from reaching the ground. In the struggle 
for existence under these conditions, only those small plants 
can survive which are able to utilize the diffuse light on 
the forest floor, or which have become adapted to an aérial 
habit, thus being placed within reach of the sunshine over- 
head. In such localities many orchids, members of the pine- 
apple family (bromeliads), as well as diverse species of 
ferns, are found growing on the branches and in the axes 
of limbs far above the ground. 
Although less frequently met with in northern latitudes, 
there are some plants found here which show this dependent 
habit very well. In the immediate vicinity of St. Louis the 
dodder or the lover’s twine is a familiar type. In the sum-- 
mer and fall one frequently sees the yellowish brown vine 
forming an interlacing network over shrubs and herbs. A 
close observation at the gr season will reveal the presence 
of small inconspicuous white flowers. These gers 
