I found a moss growing at the back of a traffic sign.
I am just after the correct botanical term for it, that’s all.
Is there a term? Epiphytic and scandent are terms but don’t really cover your moss.
Lithophyte might come closest.
One project here is Epivehicular Entities, but Episign Entities just doesn’t have an attractive cadence.I think there’s one for plants on buildings; could be used as a model. But I’ve lost the link to it.
Although the term lithograph now refers to a printing process using metal plates, by which traffic signs (and other things) are printed,“litho” means stone, so that would be confusing to me. As in “neolithic,” “paleolithic,” and the original lithography process, still used by artists today, that does involve stones.
Not that I can think of a better term…
Synthophytic? Artiphytic?
ediphyte exists, but is vanishingly rare - Google finds one instance of it being used for plants growing on buildings (with a second dependent instance), one instance of it as a typo for epiphyte, and a few instances of it as a brand name for a “medical” product. The paper that defines it defines it narrowly - “vascular plants growing out from the moist wall crevices and cracks caused by leaking sewage pipes of the neglected and dilapidated, multi storeyed buildings” - but I don’t think it unreasonable to adopt it for plants growing on human edifices in general.
murophyte is commoner, but it specifically means plants growing on walls.
The meaning of metallophyte is different, and anyway we don’t know whether the part of the sign on which is moss is growing is metal or some other material (and if a metal, the moss may well be growing on paint rather than metal). (Trying for other substrates, vitrophyte only occurs in Google as an error (my judgement) for vitrophyre (a type of rock).)
lithophyte and petrophyte apply to plants growing on rocks, with epilithophyte a particular subset. A moss growing on a traffic sign is likely to be a species that also grows as an epilithophyte. Here we run into the flexibility of language - depending on context this class of terms could refer to plants actually growing on the corresponding substrate, or to plants adapted to grow on the substrate. (Compare - is a halophyte still a halophyte if you plant it in low salt conditions?) So one could reasonably refer to a moss growing on a traffic signs as an epilithophyte. (To include lichens as well use terms like epilithic or epipetric.)
CoPilot’s suggestion is surface-colonising bryophyte, or stretching epiphytic (retaining the meaning of growing on a surface without taking nutrients from the surface, but dropping the specific surface). I’d be reluctant to adopt the second without evidence that it is an at least moderately widespread usage, and not an AI hallucination.
I believe moss that grows on roof shingles is referred to as epilithophytic, so the term probably is flexible enough to include growth on other substrates like a metal sign.
you could ask @jurga_li how to describe ‘moss growing on a traffic sign’ ?
Signensis, not to be confused with sinensis ;)
Thank you for your thoughtful suggestions! I could not find any of them in the moss keys though.
This is the observation:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/394136677
If it grows on a metal part, you can call it metallicolous, though it will not be entirely correct. Usually, mosses or lichens that grow on man-made metal objects are either epiphytes or the ones that are not very discriminative towards substratum choice. Strictly, the term metallicolous applies to the species that are saxicolous and grow on rocks that are metal-rich.
Sounds like a scientific solution, thank you.
I asked a frivolous question and got mostly serious answers. I haven’t learned this many terms in a day since I started!
Hi,
epilith cover also growth on anthropogenous hard surfaces.
Because I assume that the sign is probably aluminium, and does not contain heavy metals (likely), I would search for your species in teh section of epiliths growing on inert or basic non-calcareous rock.
Metallicolous for botanists often means a plant hrowing on substrates contaminanted naturally (ultramafic and ore minerals) or unnaturally (mine spoilage and seepage, road sides, dumps) with heavy metals; but not on metal itslef.