Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Epiphyte
/ˈɛpɪfaɪt/noun
A plant that grows perched on another plant and takes no food from it.
The Greek roots
ἐπί
epí
upon, on top of
φυτόν
phytón
plant, thing grown
Literally: “plant upon a plant”
The story of the word
The whole point of the word is the ἐπί. An epiphyte sits on its host and steals nothing, which is what separates it from a parasite, and orchids, bromeliads and most tropical mosses live that way, feeding on rain and dust with their roots gripping bark. The same φυτόν sits inside saprophyte and xerophyte, and inside neophyte, which the early church used for a newly planted Christian.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
neophytexerophytephytoplanktonepidermis
In a sentence
The oak was furred with epiphytes from the first branch upward.
Staghorn ferns are epiphytes, so a pot of soil is the last thing they want.