Abstract
One of the most important questions that I wanted to address in this book was “what makes an epiphyte an epiphyte”? The length of this treatise demonstrates that there is no simple answer to this question. There is no single unique feature, neither anatomical, morphological, physiological, nor any other biological aspect that could be used to characterize vascular epiphytes and distinguish them unambiguously from soil-rooted flora. However, throughout this monograph I tried to identify traits that are particularly common or rare among epiphytes. These traits may be relevant for particular taxonomic groups with epiphytic members or for epiphytes in general. Some differences have been highlighted from the start of the scientific study of this plant group, others are relatively new discoveries, some were expected and are easy to explain (e.g., a relatively high proportion of CAM species), others are less obvious and disputed.
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Zotz, G. (2016). Epilogue: The Epiphyte Syndrome. In: Plants on Plants – The Biology of Vascular Epiphytes. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39237-0_11
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