PLANTS

I. THAT GROW ON TREES

Orchids

Orchids represent the biggest blooming plant family in the world with more than 25,000 different cultivars, states Hope for the Rain Forests. Orchids have learned to adapt to a variety of conditions, which has afforded them the ability to grow on ground, rocks, water and trees. Approximately 70 percent of orchids grow as epiphytes, and most of these species live in tropical environments, like rain forests, on trees, indicates Monga Bay. The plant's vast root system has a large surface area allowing orchids to locate water and nutrients in the air, soil and tree branches.

Bromeliads

More than 2,700 species of bromeliads exist, states the website Amazon Rain Forest. They grow throughout the Amazon rain forest on rocks, other plants and trees. Bromeliads that grow on trees usually form on trunks and sometimes branches, which enable them to absorb water and nutrients in the air. The plant's leaves also capture and hold moisture that insects and small reptiles, like frogs and salamanders, feed on. Bromeliads occasionally cluster on a single branch, which can cause the branch to weaken and break from the weight.

Lianas

A Liana begins as a tiny shrub that develops on a rainforest floor. As the plant develops, it forms tendrils that reach out and latch on to a sapling tree. Together the lianas plant and tree grow and eventually reach the upper canopy level where they can access sunlight. Over time, the plant's tendrils spread at the top of the canopy clinging on multiple trees, which enables the plant to become denser until the plant strangles its original host tree. A host tree that succumbs to a lianas plant's wrath has a hollowed out trunk.

II.

THAT GROW ON GROUND

III.

THAT GROW IN WATER