Meaning

(obsolete) A plant growing on another, such as the mistletoe; an epiphyte..

Definitions by Sense

1. (obsolete) A plant growing on another, such as the mistletoe; an epiphyte.
2. A plant that is particularly robust and which thrives in poor growing conditions or dominates an ecosystem.
3. A plant that is unusual in its ability to perform an especially useful function
4. A plant that can be eaten for particular health benefits or particularly high nutritional value; a superfood.
5. A plant that is created through unnatural means, such as genetic engineering, to be stronger than others.
6. (manufacturing) A manufacturing plant that is particularly large and efficient, especially one that combines functions normally handled in separate plants.
7. (dentistry) A type of prosthesis composed of a fixed saddle rigidly connected to one or more abutments, especially one with subperiosteal implants.

Example Sentences

Experiments in consort touching the rudiments of plants ; and of the excrescences of plants , or superplants

And they surely speak probably who make it an arboreous excrescence, or rather superplant, bred of a viscous and superfluous sap which the tree it self cannot assimilate.

The Ancients made it a Superplant, peculiar to the Oak, and tell us, that altho' it seemingly produced Seed, they did not believe that that Seed could possibly be made to vegetate, because I suppose they had try'd it in the Earth without Success.

Doddered, as an epithet to trees, has probably been used metonymically, being intended for a tree covered with any of the smaller kinds of superplants, such as Liverworts, & c. &c.

This plant is always produced from seed, and is not to be cultivated in the earth, but will always grow upon trees; whence the ancients, who thought it to be an excrescence on the tree without seed, accounted it a superplant.

A lot of your early field research was in the desert, and one plant that you studied was creosote, which you have called "the superplant of the desert."

Tamarisk's long seed viability allows it to flourish under such conditions where willows and cottonwoods cannot. It has proven to be a biological superplant.

Superplants are frequently species that form ectomycorrhizae (e.g., eucalypts, dipterocarps), and the nutrient-gathering power of the tree's fungal partner is almost certainly involved in their ability to tolerate infertility.

Word Forms

• superplants

Related Words

When Should You Use Superplant?

Use superplant when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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