pleustophyte

English

Alternative forms

• pleistophyte

Etymology

From pleust- +‎ -phyte. Compare pleuston.

Noun

pleustophyte (plural pleustophytes)

1. An aquatic plant that floats, sometimes limited to those without roots or holdfasts fixed to soil or sediment.
   • 1983, Acta Botanica Fennica, volumes 120-129, page 13:

     The pleustophyte (Luther 1949) life form does not have root or rhizoid contact with the bottom (although benthopleustophytes rest on the bottom).

   • 2004 January 1, Benjamín Ortiz-Rivas, Andrés Moya, David Martínez-Torres, “Molecular systematics of aphids (Homoptera: Aphididae): new insights from the long-wavelength opsin gene.”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), Science.gov (United States):

     phosphate-enrichment of both sediment and water leads to luxurious growth of pleustophytes such as Riccia fluitans L. and Lemna minor L. in small, shallow waters

   • 2012, R.H. Whittaker, Classification of Plant Communities, page 137:

     The planktophytes and smaller pleustophytes (i.e. the Lemnids and Ricciellids in the sense of DEN HARTOG & SEGAL 1964) differ from all other water plants by forming mobile synusiae, able to shift from one phytocoenose to another.
     Before going into detail it is useful to distinguish with LUTHER (1949) between haptophytes (adnate or non-rooting hydrophytes), rhizophytes (radicant or rooted hydrophytes), planktophytes, and pleustophytes (i.e. microscopic and macroscopic errant or mobile hydrophytes respectively).

Hypernyms

• hydrophyte

Coordinate terms

• amphiphyte
• haptophyte
• helophyte
• hydatophyte
• planktophyte
• rhizophyte
• tenagophyte
• trichophyte

References

• “pleustophyte”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.