Epiepiphyte

 

First came a tree branch. Then lichens partly surrounded the branch. Then on top of the lichens came a ball moss, Tillandsia recurvata. (If your imagination turns the ball moss into a supernumerary spider, that’s on you.) I played botanical archaeologist with the layers on March 4th on the grounds of Central City Austin, which despite its name is a church far from the center of Austin.

I seem able to get away with epiepiphyte [from Greek epi, meaning ‘upon, over, around’] in my title because there’s ambiguity in the term epiphyte. All the dictionaries I’ve checked give a definition like ‘a plant that grows on another plant but is not parasitic on it.’ The key word in such definitions is plant. Outside dictionaries, some sources use epiphyte more broadly by replacing plant with organism. For instance, the Wikipedia article on epiphytes says “Epiphytes in marine systems are species of algae, bacteria, fungi, sponges, bryozoans, ascidians, protozoa, crustaceans, molluscs and any other sessile organism that grows on the surface of a plant, typically seagrasses or algae.” While Wikipedia isn’t always to be trusted, I’m finding the more expansive sense of epiphyte in indisputably scientific sources as well. For example, the book Forest Conditions in a Changing Environment speaks of “epiphytic lichens, which grow on the branches and trunks of trees.” And so it seems I can get away with calling the ball moss in this picture an epiepiphyte.

 

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I recently came across Alan Levinovitz’s article “The info equivalent of junk food,” with subtitle “Ultra-processed information is hijacking our appetites much like ultra-processed snacks do.” Check it out.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

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