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.
Lichenology is the branch of mycology that studies the lichens, symbiotic organisms made up of an intimate symbiotic association of a microscopic alga with a filamentous fungus. Lichens are chiefly characterized by this symbiosis.
A lichen is a hybrid colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among filaments of multiple fungi species, along with a yeast embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualistic relationship.
Thallus, from Latinized Greek θαλλός, meaning "a green shoot" or "twig", is the vegetative tissue of some organisms in diverse groups such as algae, fungi, some liverworts, lichens, and the Myxogastria. A thallus usually names the entire body of a multicellular non-moving organism in which there is no organization of the tissues into organs. Many of these organisms were previously known as the thallophytes, a polyphyletic group of distantly related organisms. An organism or structure resembling a thallus is called thalloid, thallodal, thalliform, thalline, or thallose.
The embryophytes are a clade of plants, also known as Embryophyta or land plants. They are the most familiar group of photoautotrophs that make up the vegetation on Earth's dry lands and wetlands. Embryophytes have a common ancestor with green algae, having emerged within the Phragmoplastophyta clade of freshwater charophyte green algae as a sister taxon of Charophyceae, Coleochaetophyceae and Zygnematophyceae. Embryophytes consist of the bryophytes and the polysporangiophytes. Living embryophytes include hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms. Embryophytes have diplobiontic life cycles.
A frond is a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds and some botanists restrict the term to this group. Other botanists allow the term frond to also apply to the large leaves of cycads, as well as palms (Arecaceae) and various other flowering plants, such as mimosa or sumac. "Frond" is commonly used to identify a large, compound leaf, but if the term is used botanically to refer to the leaves of ferns and algae it may be applied to smaller and undivided leaves.
Non-vascular plants are plants without a vascular system consisting of xylem and phloem. Instead, they may possess simpler tissues that have specialized functions for the internal transport of water.
Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher, also known as Endlicher István László, was an Austrian botanist, numismatist and Sinologist. He was a director of the Botanical Garden of Vienna.
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.
Rhizoids are protuberances that extend from the lower epidermal cells of bryophytes and algae. They are similar in structure and function to the root hairs of vascular land plants. Similar structures are formed by some fungi. Rhizoids may be unicellular or multicellular.
Metzgeriales is an order of liverworts. The group is sometimes called the simple thalloid liverworts: "thalloid" because the members lack structures resembling stems or leaves, and "simple" because their tissues are thin and relatively undifferentiated. All species in the order have a small gametophyte stage and a smaller, relatively short-lived, spore-bearing stage. Although these plants are almost entirely restricted to regions with high humidity or readily available moisture, the group as a whole is widely distributed, and occurs on every continent except Antarctica.
A cryptogam is a plant or a plant-like organism that reproduces by spores, without flowers or seeds.
One of the prime systems of plant taxonomy, the Engler system was devised by Adolf Engler (1844–1930), and is featured in two major taxonomic texts he authored or co-authored. His influence is reflected in the use of the terms "Engler School" and "Engler Era". Engler's starting point was that of Eichler who had been the first to use phylogenetic principles, although Engler himself did not think that he was.
The following outline is an overview of and topical guide to botany, the biological academic discipline involving the study of plants.
This article attempts to place key plant innovations in a geological context. It concerns itself only with novel adaptations and events that had a major ecological significance, not those that are of solely anthropological interest. The timeline displays a graphical representation of the adaptations; the text attempts to explain the nature and robustness of the evidence.
Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water, using the green pigment chlorophyll. Exceptions are parasitic plants that have lost the genes for chlorophyll and photosynthesis, and obtain their energy from other plants or fungi. Most plants are muliticellular, except for some green algae.
Cormophytes (Cormophyta) are the "plants differentiated into roots, shoots and leaves, and well adapted for life on land, comprising pteridophytes and the Spermatophyta." This group of plants include mosses, ferns and seed plants. These plants differ from thallophytes, whose body is referred to as the thallus, i.e. a simple body not differentiated into leaf and stem, as of lichens, multicellular algae and some liverworts.
The University of Michigan Herbarium is the herbarium of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States. One of the most-extensive botanical collections in the world, the herbarium has some 1.7 million specimens of vascular plants, algae, bryophytes, fungi, and lichens, and is a valuable resource for teaching and research in biology and botany. The herbarium includes many rare and extinct species.
An early system of plant taxonomy, the Lindley system, was first published by John Lindley as An Introduction to the Natural System of Botany. This was a minor modification of that of de Candolle (1813). He developed this further over a number of publications, including the Nixus plantarum (1833) and a second edition of Natural History (1836), in which he introduced the concept of a higher order of taxonomic rank, the Alliances, in which he embedded the Tribes (families). He also expanded his ideas on Exogens in his entry of that name in the Penny Cyclopedia (1838). In 1839 he revised his division of the plant kingdom into classes in an article in the Botanical Register. Lindley's system culminated in the three editions of his Vegetable Kingdom.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to fungi and mycology:
