Something that lives on the surface of other plants but does not derive water or nourishment from them: An epiphyte grows on a terrestrial plant and lacks direct contact with soil or water because they are able to get moisture and nutrients from the air or from small pools of water that collect on the host plant.

Spanish moss and many orchids are considered to be epiphytes.

1. In botany, a plant which grows on another plant, but which does not, like a parasite, derive its nourishment from it.

Many orchids and also some ferns and many mosses, liverworts, lichens, and algæ are examples.

2. In zoology, a fungus parasitic on the skin and its appendages or on mucous surfaces of humans and other animals, causing disease; a dermatophyte.