What Are Air Plants?

Air Plant

Air plants are plants that grow on other plants for support and get their water and food from the air.  Many ferns, mosses and orchids are air plants.

Some plants spend their entire lives perches high in trees.  These  plants are called air plants.  Another name for them is epiphytes (pronounced EP ih fites), a name that means “upon plants.”

Many orchids and ferns are air plants.  Spanish moss, which hangs in long, gray festoons from tree branches, is a well-known air plants of the southern United States. Unlike mistletoe, a plant that steals its food from the plant it grows on, the air plant does not take any food from its host.  The only help it needs from the host plant is to be lifted up into the sunshine.

It gets nourishment by taking water directly from the air and from decayed matter which collects on the plant or on the bark of the tree. Some air plants have long, spongy air roots that dangle in the moist air and soak up the water they need.  Others take in moisture from the air through their leaves or stems.-Dick Rogers