Dictionary.net

Superficial vegetable parasite.

Plant which lives on other plants, but is not parasitic.

Phyto-parasite. A parasite derived from the vegetable kingdom. Epiphytes are divided by Vogel into, 1. Vegetations in the human fluids, as the torula cerevisiae in vomited fluids, and faecal evacuations, and the sarcina ventriculi. 2. Vegetations on the external skin and its appendages, as in tinea favosa, mentagra, herpes tonsurans and plica polonica; and, 3. Vegetations on the mucous membrane,-as in the aphthae of children; in the cicatrices of the mucous membrane after typhus, &c. By some, the term epiphytes is restricted to those vegetable parasites which grow on the surface of the body.

An externally parasitic plant organism.