Saprophyte
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| Water: | ◍ | ?"?" is not in the list (wet, moist, moderate, dry, less when dormant) of allowed values for the "Water" property. |
Read about Saprophyte in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Saprophyte (Greek, rotten, and plant, i.e., living on dead organic matter). A dependent, or heterotrophic, plant (whether bacterium, fungus, or higher plant) subsisting upon the humus of the soil, or dead or decaying organic materials. A holosaprophyte is a plant which lives exclusively on dead organic food. One which is only partially dependent on dead organic food and also feeds independently, as an autophyte, is appropriately called a partial saprophyte. The customary classification which includes under the term "saprophyte" all bacteria that do not subsist on living plants or animals no longer corresponds with facts. The integrity of the classification has been destroyed by the discovery of certain bacteria in the soil, as the nitrifying bacteria, which are able, even without sunlight, to appropriate the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere. Saprophytes intergrade with parasites on the one hand so closely and with autophytes on the other that the distinction of them is often difficult. For example, it is supposed that the chestnut blight (Endothia parasitica) was originally saprophytic, but has recently assumed a virulent parasitic development. Among the fungi we class as saprophytes all plants which live upon a dead or decaying organic substratum. Such are the baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), the mushroom (Agaricus campestris), and the stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus). Most mushrooms and toadstools are saprophytes. Some of the flowering plants possessing ectotrophic mycorrhiza (Indian pipe, Monotropa uniflora) and endotrophic mycorrhiza (Neottia Nidus-avis, Corallorhiza innata, Epipogum aphyllum, snow-plant, Sarcodes sanguinea, and Thismia Aseroe) are also classed as saprophytes. A few algae are saprophytic. A cave-growing form of Gloeothece rupestris, known as var. cavernarum, utilizes organic food and is colorless. CH
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References
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
External links
- w:Saprophyte. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
- Saprophyte QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)
