Plants that live in trees

Do you know there are some kinds of plants that never grow in the
ground? They grow high up in trees in tropical forests.

There’s a good reason for this. In a forest where trees grow tall and
close together, very little sunlight reaches the ground. The leaves
block the sun. This makes it hard for other green plants to grow. They
must have sunlight.

But orchids, Spanish moss, staghorn ferns, and many other plants get the
sun they need by growing on the trunks and branches of trees. When it
rains, their leaves and stems soak up and store water.

How do these plants get up into the trees? Most of them have light seeds
that float in the wind. If one of these seeds is blown into a good spot
in a tree it takes root. It spends the rest of its life there, hanging
on.