Air Plants or Epiphytes, ep'i fites, plants that grow upon other plants or trees, apparently without receiving any nourishment otherwise than from the air. The name is restricted to flowering plants and is suitably applied to many species of orchids. The conditions necessary to the growth of such plants are excessive heat and moisture, and hence they live chiefly in the damp and shady tropical forests of Africa, Asia and America. They are particularly abundant in Java and tropical America.