THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



Epiphytes have been denned as plants which live or grow upon other 

 plants without deriving their sustenance from them, and thus they can be- 

 readily distinguished from parasites, which absorb their nutriment direct 

 from their hosts. It is much more difficult to draw a line of demarcation 

 between epiphytes and terrestrial plants, for the latter are sometimes found 

 growing in accumulations of decaying vegetable matter upon trees, and some 

 plants seem almost independent of station if other conditions are suitable. 

 There are, however, many plants whose sole habitat seems to be the bark 

 of trees, and others which are rarely found except in accumulations of 

 decaying vegetation in forks of the branches and crevices of the trunks, and 

 to these the name epiphytes is applicable. One usually thinks of Orchids 

 in this connection, but there are many other Orders which contain epiphytic 

 representatives, while many Orchids are purely terrestrial. 



Putting aside the lower Cryptogams, among which epiphytes are 

 numerous, we find that the genus Lycopodium is largely epiphytic through- 

 out the tropics. Among Ferns several genera are largely epiphytic. 

 Bromeliaceae is a large Tropical American Order containing many epiphytic 

 representatives. Aroideae also contains many epiphytes, while among 

 Orchids we find that a large proportion of the tribes Epidendreae and 

 Vandeae belong to this class, in fact they are found almost throughout the 

 tropics where the conditions are favourable. Among Dicotyledons we find 

 numerous epiphytes among Piperaceae, Urticaceae (Ficus and Dorstenia), 

 various Cacti, Begonias, several genera of Melastomaceae, many Vacciniaceae, 

 some Rhododendrons among the Eriaceae, numerous Gesneraceae and 

 Rubiaceae (the Myrmecodia group among the latter being specially note- 

 worthy), and a few representatives of several other Orders. 



Although there are many plants whose sole habitat is the bark of trees, 

 the dead bark does not always form the base from which their nutriment is 

 derived. The trees often only serve as supports by means of which the plants 

 raise themselves out of darkness into light. Such plants grow from stem or 

 branches and send down absorptive roots into the soil, some of these roots 

 being of enormous length. Here then is another difficulty in defining the 

 term epiphyte, for these plants are closely analagous to climbing lianas, the 

 difference being that the climber has its anchorage in the soil of the forest 

 floor, and climbs up into the sun and light by means of any support that 

 presents itself, while the other class germinates on the branches, and sends 

 down roots to the soil in search of food. 



Many plants might be termed pseudo-epiphytes, for they grow in 



