nitrophilous, a. Bot.
(naɪˈtrɒfɪləs)
[f. nitrogen + -philous.]
Of a plant: growing best in a habitat rich in nitrogen. So ˈnitrophile n., a plant of this type.
| 1909 Groom & Balfour tr. Warming's Oecol. Plants xvii. 68 Nitrophilous plants..thrive best in soil where compounds of ammonium and nitric acid are abundant. 1932 Fuller & Conard tr. Braun-Blanquet's Plant Sociol. iv. 63 Here [sc. among ecologically specialized forms] belong many mycotrophic species, saprophytes, nitrophiles. Ibid. viii. 240 Nitrophilous communities are very widely distributed in dry, subtropical regions. 1964 V. J. Chapman Coastal Vegetation iv. 97 These [sc. marsh plants] are probably nitrophiles. 1967 M. E. Hale Biol. Lichens iv. 58 This phenomenon [sc. lichens growing on guano] has given rise to a large literature on nitrophilous or ornithocoprophilous lichens. 1972 A. Mitchell in Leigh & Noble Plants for Sheep in Australia v. 42 In eastern Victoria..the native perennial grasses could be maintained in the sward with the introduced clovers without the same tendency to invasion by nitrophilous weeds. |