Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Flourishing in a very dry environment.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In recent usage correlated with
xerophyte and equivalent toxerophytic , properly in sense 1: first used by Thurmann (1849), who regarded xerophilous plants as correlated with dysgeogenous soils. See quotation undersilicicolous . - Loving dryness: in botany noting plants which are in various ways peculiarly adapted to dry, especially to hot and dry climates, as by possessing coriaceous leaves, succulent stems, etc.; specifically, belonging to the group of xerophils. See
xerophil .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Bot.) Drought-loving; able withstand the absence or lack of moisture.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Being able to thrive in dry weather.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It is dominated by five xerophilous dipterocarps and is confined to the poorest and most porous soils where fire occurs.
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From east to west the vegetation changes in the ecoregion, from shrubland steppe with xerophilous shrubs such as Adesmia, Baccharis, Fabiana, and Senecio to grassy steppe with grasses of the genera Calamogrostis, Festuca, and Stipa.
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The dunes and strand support only a few species of xerophilous herbaceous plants and are characteristically unwooded.
Ecoregions of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia (EPA) 2008
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Forest remnants consist primarily of Quercus persica and, up to an elevation of 2,400m, xerophilous forest of Quercus spp., hawthorn (Crataegus), almond (Prunus amygdalus), nettle tree (Celtis) and pear (Pyrus spp) predominates.
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In the desert coastal areas of western Venezuela, mangrove forests are associated with xerophilous littoral scrubs, and halophilous and psammophilous littoral meadows.
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The bush lands go to clearly clayey-sandy soil in the xerophilous bush or scrublands, passing through intermediate forms in the briars.
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In the xerophilous grasslands there are shallow soils and abundant outcrops of limestone rock.
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The coastal xerophilous grasslands are distributed on the peninsula and on the coastal strip between the towns of Coro and La Vela and Coro and Adícora, where they form a narrow, more or less continuous, strip of stabilized dunes.
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Other types of vegetation are cactus scrub, xerophilous open woodland, rock associations, psammophilous associations, and halophilous associations.
Argentine Monte 2007
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In the sand dune areas, precisely where the birthplace of these topographical formations lies, between Coro and La Vela, a clear coastal area of shore grasses and xerophilous bush free of grazing was maintained for more than 20 years.
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