Air-Plants, plants that are not rooted in the ground, but are attached to the bark of other plants. They live in the air without earth or water, and derive their nourishment from the air. Doubtless these plants also draw food from the decaying wood and bark of the plants to which they are attached. They are to be distinguished from parasites which suck the sap of other plants. Strictly speaking, all mosses and lichens growing on the trunks of trees are air-plants. The Druid-like beards that reach to the bosoms of Longfellow's Acadian hemlocks, and the Spanish moss that drapes the forests in the swamps and along the shores of the Gulf States, are air-plants. The name is restricted, usually, to flowering plants, including a large number of showy orchids growing in moist, hot, shady localities like the forests of the Amazon and of India. See ORCHIDS; MOSS; LICHENS.