noun
definition
Any plant suited for life in a habitat where water is scarce, such as in a desert or chaparral. Such plants may be succulent, have small or reduced leaves, or spines.
definition
A desert plant
Examples of xerophytes in a Sentence
The transpiring surface of xerophytes is frequently reduced.
For instance, some xerophytes are dry and hard in structure, whilst others are succulent and fleshy.
Whilst Schimper objected to the constitution of a special category, such as mesophytes, to include all plants which are neither pronounced xerophytes nor pronounced hygrophytes, he recognized the necessity of a third class in which to place those Schuuw, Grundtraek til en almindelig Plantegeografie (Kjbbenhavn, 1822); German trans., Grundzuge einer allegemeinen Pflanzengeographie (Berlin, I 823).
Such terms as hydrophytes, xerophytes, and halophytes had been used by plant geographers before Warmings time e.g., by Schouw;4 and the terms evidently supply a want felt by botanists as they have come into general use.
The criticisms were directed chiefly to the inclusion of sand dune plants among halophytes, to the exclusion of halophytes from xerophytes, to the inclusion of bog xerophytes among hydrophytes, to the inclusion of all conifers among xerophytes and of all deciduous trees among mesophytes, and to the group of mesophytes in general.
Schimper used the term xerophytes to include plants which live in soils which are physiologically dry, and the term hygrophytes those which live in soils which are physiologically wet or damp. Schimper recognized that the two classes are connected by transitional forms, and that it is useless to attempt to give the matter a statistical basis.
It is only in a general sense like Schimpers that such ecological terms as xerophytes have any value; and it is not possible, at least at present, to frame ecological classes, which shall have a high scientific value, on a basis of this nature.
Bog Xerophytes live in the peaty soil of fens and moors which are physically wet, but which are said to be physiologically dry.
They are eminently dry-country plants (xerophytes); the narrow leaves are protected from loss of water by a thick cuticle, and have a well-developed sheath which embraces the stem and forms, with the sheaths of the other leaves of the rosette, a basin in which water collects, with fragments of rotting leaves and the like.