Epiphytes - it's a way of life

Epiphytes are not a family of plants, but a group that live on other plants instead of in the soil. Most do not harm their hosts and are therefore not parasites. In The Glasshouse a dead tree provides a structure for displaying a range of epiphytic plants.

The term epiphyte comes from the Greek epi (meaning upon) and phyton (meaning plant).

More than 80 plant families - such as ferns, mosses, cacti, bromeliads and orchids - include epiphytes. Most come from tropical rainforests and cloud forests. They grow high up in the canopy in order to reach the light. In these environments, many epiphytic plants may colonise one tree.

Many epiphytes collect and absorb moisture in their rosettes of leaves. Small animals sometimes make their homes in these water reservoirs. They absorb nutrients from the air, rain water and decomposing matter caught among their leaves.

Most epiphytes don’t harm their hosts but some, known as 'stranglers', start as epiphytes and then grow down to the ground. These end up killing their hosts and becoming trees themselves.

Epiphytes from the bromeliad family make good house or conservatory plants. Many have dramatic, brightly coloured flowers or bracts and their thick waxy leaves, developed to minimise evaporation, mean that they can survive with little water.

Air plants and Spanish moss, which hangs from trees in Florida, belong to the genus Tillandsia. They collect moisture and nutrients through their silvery leaves.

In the Moist Temperate Zone, look out for two enormous staghorn ferns (Platycerium bifurcatum) (left). More than 100 years old, they were brought to Wisley from the original RHS conservatory in Chiswick in 1903.

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