An epiphyte is a plant or plant-like organism that grows on the surface of another plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phorophytes. Epiphytes take part in nutrient cycles and add to both the diversity and biomass of the ecosystem in which they occur, like any other organism. They are an important source of food for many species. Typically, the older parts of a plant will have more epiphytes growing on them. Epiphytes differ from parasites in that they grow on other plants for physical support and do not necessarily affect the host negatively. An organism that grows on another organism that is not a plant may be called an epibiont. Epiphytes are usually found in the temperate zone or in the tropics. Epiphyte species make good houseplants due to their minimal water and soil requirements. Epiphytes provide a rich and diverse habitat for other organisms including animals, fungi, bacteria, and myxomycetes.
Epidendroideae is a subfamily of plants in the orchid family, Orchidaceae. Epidendroideae is larger than all the other orchid subfamilies together, comprising more than 15,000 species in 576 genera. Most epidendroid orchids are tropical epiphytes, typically with pseudobulbs. There are, however, some terrestrials such as Epipactis and even a few myco-heterotrophs, which are parasitic upon mycorrhizal fungi.
Nothofagus cunninghamii, commonly known as myrtle beech or Tasmanian myrtle, is the dominant species of cool temperate rainforests in Tasmania and Southern Victoria. It has low fire resistance and grows best in partial shade conditions.
Sterculia quadrifida, also known as the peanut tree, monkey nut or red-fruited kurrajong is a small tree that grows in the rainforests, vine thickets, and gallery forests of New Guinea and northern Australia.
Cordillera Azul National Park is a protected area in Peru. It protects part of the Ucayali moist forests ecoregion.
Schinus molle is an evergreen tree that grows to 15 meters. It is native to an area from the Peruvian Andes to southern Brazil. The bright pink fruits of Schinus molle are often sold as "pink peppercorns" although S. molle is unrelated to black pepper. The word molle in Schinus molle comes from mulli, the Quechua word for the tree. The tree is host to the pepper-tree moth, Bombycomorpha bifascia.
Brownea grandiceps is a species of tree in the family Fabaceae. Its common names include the rose of Venezuela and the scarlet flame bean. It originated in South America but is now widely grown as a decorative tree in tropical gardens.
Atherosperma moschatum, the southern sassafras or blackheart sassafras, is an evergreen tree native to the cool temperate rainforests of Tasmania, Victoria, and New South Wales in Australia. It is common in the rainforests of Tasmania and Victoria, but more scattered and rare in the higher altitudes of eastern New South Wales. The northernmost area is at Mount Grundy, west of Port Macquarie.
Alto Purús National Park is a national park in the Amazon rainforest of Peru, established in 2004. It covers an area of 2,510,694.41 ha (9,693.85 sq mi) in the provinces of Purús (Ucayali), Tahuamanu and Tambopata.
The Private Life of Plants is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first shown in the United Kingdom from 11 January 1995.
Litsea reticulata is a common Australian tree, growing from near Milton, New South Wales to the Bunya Mountains, Queensland. Common names include bollygum, bolly wood and brown beech. The habitat of the bollygum is rainforest of most types, except the dryer forms.
In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from spices. Herbs generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant, while spices are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark, roots and fruits.
Simarouba amara is a species of tree in the family Simaroubaceae, found in the rainforests and savannahs of South and Central America and the Caribbean. It was first described by Aubl. in French Guiana in 1775 and is one of six species of Simarouba. The tree is evergreen, but produces a new set of leaves once a year. It requires relatively high levels of light to grow and grows rapidly in these conditions, but lives for a relatively short time. In Panama, it flowers during the dry season in February and March, whereas in Costa Rica, where there is no dry season it flowers later, between March and July. As the species is dioecious, the trees are either male or female and only produce male or female flowers. The small yellow flowers are thought to be pollinated by insects, the resulting fruits are dispersed by animals including monkeys, birds and fruit-eating bats and the seeds are also dispersed by leaf cutter ants.
Platypodium elegans, the graceful platypodium, is a large leguminous tree found in the Neotropics that forms part of the forest canopy. It was first described by Julius Rudolph Theodor Vogel in 1837 and is the type species of the genus. The tree has been known to grow up to 30 metres in height and have a trunk with a diameter up to 1 m at breast height. Its trunk has large holes in it, sometimes making it possible to see through the trunk. The holes provide a habitat for giant damselflies and other insects both when alive and once the tree has died and fallen over. It has compound leaves each of which is made up of 10–20 leaflets. Three new chemical compounds have been isolated from the leaves and they form part of the diet of several monkeys and the squirrel Sciurus ingrami. In Panama it flowers from April to June, the flowers contain only four ovules, but normally only one of these reaches maturity forming a winged seed pod around 10 cm long and weighing 2 g. During the dry season around a year after the flowers are fertilised, the seeds are dispersed by the wind and the tree loses it leaves. The seeds are eaten by agoutis and by bruchid beetle larvae. The majority of seedlings are killed by damping off fungi in the first few months of growth, with seedlings that grow nearer the parent trees being more likely to die. The seedlings are relatively unable to survive in deep shade compared to other species in the same habitat. Various epiphytes are known to grow on P. elegans with the cactus Epiphyllum phyllanthus being the most abundant in Panama. Despite having holes in its trunk which should encourage debris and seeds to collect, hemiepiphytes are relatively uncommon, meaning that animals are not attracted to it to feed and then defecate. It has no known uses in traditional medicine and although it can be used for timber, the wood is of poor quality.
Pentaclethra macroloba is a large and common leguminous tree in the genus Pentaclethra native to the wet tropical areas of the northern Neotropics, which can form monocultural stands in some seasonally flooded habitats. It has giant, bipinnate leaves shaped like feathers. It uses seed dispersal by water to establish itself in new areas, having floating seeds that are left behind after the waters recede after floods or tides. It has hard timber which is not very resistant to rot in the tropics, but it can be treated, has a pretty pink-red colour when dry, and has a number of uses. Oil used in cosmetics is extracted from the large seeds. In the northern Amazon region the bark is used in herbal medicine as an antivenom, and in the Guianas the bark has been used as a fish poison. Despite their toxicity, the seeds are eaten by variegated squirrels, parrots and macaws, and serve as the nurseries of the larvae of the moth Carmenta surinamensis.
Atherosperma moschatum subsp. integrifolium is a small evergreen tree native to the temperate rainforests of central and northern New South Wales, Australia. In 2006, it was recognised as a separate subspecies by Richard Schodde. Common names include "southern sassafras - narrow leaf form" and "blackheart sassafras".
Celtic Rainforest is a colloquial term which refers to the temperate rainforest of Ireland and Great Britain. These woodlands are also variously referred to as Atlantic rainforest, Upland Oakwoods, Atlantic Oakwoods or Western Oakwoods. Today, the Celtic Rainforest exists as small fragments of the temperate rainforest that once covered much of Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. The majority of these fragments occur on steep-sided slopes above rivers and lakes which have avoided clearance and intensive grazing pressure. There are notable examples in Scotland on the islands and shores of Loch Maree, Loch Sunart, Loch Lomond, and one of the best preserved sites on the remote Taynish Peninsula in Argyll. In Wales, they occur on steep-sided riverine gorges in Snowdonia and Mid Wales. In England, there are examples in the Lake District, and steep-sided riverine and estuarine valleys in South West England, including the Fowey valley in Cornwall, and the valley of the river Dart which flows off Dartmoor, and has rainfall in excess of 2 metres per year.
Fusaea peruviana is a species of plant in the family Annonaceae. It is native to Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Robert Elias Fries, the Swedish botanist who first formally described the species, named it after Peru where the specimen he examined was found near the Huallaga River and the city of Yurimaguas.
Lannea welwitschii is a species of tree in the family Anacardiaceae. It is native to the tropical rainforests of West and Central Africa. The timber is used to make furniture and utensils and for many other purposes, the fruits can be eaten, and the bark is used to produce a dye, for making rope and in traditional medicine.
Dipteryx micrantha is a tropical flowering plant, a giant tree in the Faboideae subfamily of the bean family Fabaceae. It is a dominant emergent tree in parts of the rainforests of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In the international timber market, this species is traded under the name cumaru. It furnishes a dense, hard, beautiful reddish timber which has become a popular import in the 2010s for use in parquet. The ornamental bunches of lilac pink flowers high in the canopy eventually develop into a mass of large fruit pods, which are an important food for many native animals during the dry season. The fruit contains a single oily seed which is edible, although these seeds are not exploited as a commercial product.
