17, 



III. SUMMARY OF LITERATURE ON BIOLOGY OP EPIPHYTES 



Practica,lly nothing was known to the early 

 botanists about the ecological group of plants 

 now known as epiphytes, It was late in the nineteenth 

 ceatuty when the first papers dealing with these 

 air plants b^gan to appeaJC.As early as 1881 the 

 question of the source of the mineapl elements 

 necessary for the growth and development of the 

 epiphytes interested botanists.It was then that 

 Dixon (4) analyzed chemically the ash of living 

 and dead fronds as well as roots of Platycerium 

 grande . P« aM come and Asplenium nidus « He likewise 

 analyzed the ash of the humus of the substratum on 

 which these epipht«<es were growing, His results 

 indicate that there was no similarity betv/een the 

 composition of the ash of the living epiphyte and 

 that of the substratum to which it was attached. 

 He concluded from this that the epiphytes obtained 

 most of their inorganic matter from the dust of the 

 air, Although these, plants generally require "quantities 

 of alkalies", they frequently obtain these substances 

 from decaying fronds and from the humus. 



The foremost student of epiphytes was Schimper." 

 His paper (24), the results of his travels in the 

 southern part of the United States and the West Indies, 

 caafQvts^eii a great deal of enthusiasm over epiphytes 



