You searched for: “mesophyte
mesophyte
1. A plant which is adapted to grow under adequate conditions of water supply.

In drought, conditions wilting is soon apparent as the plants have no special mechanisms to conserve water.

Most angiosperms are mesophytes. Angiosperms include all agricultural crops (including the cereal grains and other grasses), all garden flowers and most horticultural plants, all the common broad-leaved shrubs and trees, and all the usual field, garden, and roadside weeds.

2. Terrestrial plants which are adapted to neither a particularly dry nor a particularly wet environment.

An example of a mesophytic habitat would be a rural temperate meadow.

Mesophytes generally require a more or less continuous water supply and they usually have larger, thinner leaves compared to xerophytes (dry plants), sometimes with a greater number of stomata on the undersides of the leaves.

Because of their lack of particular xeromorphic adaptations, when they are exposed to extreme conditions they quickly lose water, and don't survive in drought or very dry weather and they require very medium amounts of moisture.

This entry is located in the following units: meso-, mes-, mesi- (page 6) phyto-, phyt-, -phyte (page 9)