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superplant (plural superplants)

1. (obsolete) A plant growing on another, such as the mistletoe; an epiphyte.
   • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “VI. Century.”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

     Experiments in consort touching the rudiments of plants ; and of the excrescences of plants , or superplants

   • 1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths:

     And they surely speak probably who make it an arboreous excrescence, or rather superplant, bred of a viscous and superfluous sap which the tree it self cannot assimilate.

   • 1726, Richard Bradley, New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, Both Philosophical and Practical, page 19:

     The Ancients made it a Superplant, peculiar to the Oak, and tell us, that altho' it seemingly produced Seed, they did not believe that that Seed could possibly be made to vegetate, because I suppose they had try'd it in the Earth without Success.

   • 1821, Sydenham Edwards, The Botanical Register, page 274:

     Doddered, as an epithet to trees, has probably been used metonymically, being intended for a tree covered with any of the smaller kinds of superplants, such as Liverworts, & c. &c.

   • 1845, London Encyclopædia, Or, Universal Dictionary of Science, Art, Literature, and Practical Mechanics, page 766:

     This plant is always produced from seed, and is not to be cultivated in the earth, but will always grow upon trees; whence the ancients, who thought it to be an excrescence on the tree without seed, accounted it a superplant.

2. A plant that is particularly robust and which thrives in poor growing conditions or dominates an ecosystem.
   • 1996, The American Biology Teacher - Volume 58, Issues 1-8, page 284:

     A lot of your early field research was in the desert, and one plant that you studied was creosote, which you have called "the superplant of the desert."

   • 2000, James M. Aton, Robert S. McPherson, River Flowing from the Sunrise:

     Tamarisk's long seed viability allows it to flourish under such conditions where willows and cottonwoods cannot. It has proven to be a biological superplant.

   • 2008, David A. Perry, Ram Oren, Stephen C. Hart, Forest Ecosystems, page 72:

     Superplants are frequently species that form ectomycorrhizae (e.g., eucalypts, dipterocarps), and the nutrient-gathering power of the tree's fungal partner is almost certainly involved in their ability to tolerate infertility.

   • 2010, Ellen Wohl, A World of Rivers, page 91:

     By the 1970s, the upper Nile swamps had become a perennial center of infestation as currents and winds spread clumps of hyacinths downstream. This superplant can grow by 10 to 15 percent of its fresh weight a day.

3. A plant that is unusual in its ability to perform an especially useful function
   • 2000, Paul Rutherford, Endless Propaganda: The Advertising of Public Goods, page 218:

     The clean-air machine has a slot for coins, a panel called Hygiene Control, and its sides are made of some translucent substance, through which can be seen the fuzzy outline of a cluster of leaves, as of some superplant that produces pure life-giving air.

   • 2018, Basmati, Garden Themes: inspiring garden collections & design ideas, page 62:

     The florist's chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium) (with the peace lily) was the most potent of the superplants tested by NASA. It filtered out all five of the common toxins mentioned here (trichloroethylene, formaldehyde, benzene, xylene, and ammonia).

   • 2020, John E. Wade II, Wisdom for Heaven on Earth:

     An article in Financial Times in February 2019, “Could a Superplant Save the World?” by Leslie Hook, gave a really insightful scrutiny of the research being done to remove carbon dioxide from Earth's atmosphere.

4. A plant that can be eaten for particular health benefits or particularly high nutritional value; a superfood.
   • 2005, Kymythy Schultze, The Natural Nutrition No-Cook Book:

     Parsley may look like a mild-mannered garnish, but inside lurks the nutrient content of a “superplant.”

   • 2010, Patrick Holford, Liz Efiong, Say No To Cancer:

     It is potentially a super-plant, with immune-stimulating, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumour and anti-microbial properties.

   • 2016, Doreen Virtue, Jenny Ross, Veggie Mama: A Fun, Wholesome Guide to Feeding Your Kids Tasty Plant-based Meals, page 28:

     Asparagus: As a superplant food, asparagus contains chromium, a trace mineral that allows the transport of glucose from the bloodstream into the cells.

   • 2017, William Petersen, Against the Stream: Reflections of an Unconventional Demographer:

     The development of the superplants initially swung opinion toward high optimism, but when it became obvious that not all the problems had been solved, it swung back again.

5. A plant that is created through unnatural means, such as genetic engineering, to be stronger than others.
   • 2000, I. Edward Alcamo, DNA Technology: The Awesome Skill, page 260:

     An artist's fanciful conception of a superplant of the future produced through the processes of DNA technology.

   • 2012, Ray V Herren, Introduction to Biotechnology, page 194:

     The propagation of these plants may very well be done by cloning because if a superplant is genetically engineered, the genetic integrity of the plant must be kept intact.

   • 2014, Steven Ledbetter, The Exchange:

     Once this 'superplant' with this superior gene is introduced into nature it will completely dominate its environment and overpower all natural born species.

6. (manufacturing) A manufacturing plant that is particularly large and efficient, especially one that combines functions normally handled in separate plants.
   • 1969, United States. Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service, Potential Mechanization in the Flue-cured Tobacco Industry, with Emphasis on Human Resource Adjustment, page 27:

     All new flue-cured processing plants built during the past 10 years have been of the superplant type, and the bulk of the processing capacity operated by domestic cigarette manufacturers is already of the superplant type.

   • 1980, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Winter Annual Meeting:

     While the consensus definitely is that none of these problems are insurmountable a MHD system can evidently not immediately be incorporated into the power core of the proposed superplant.

   • 2013, Sarah Jo Peterson, Planning the Home Front, page 29:

     The Dearborn Township location was well suited for the Ford superplant.

   • 2017, Alex Shoumatoff, The Wasting of Borneo: Dispatches from a Vanishing World, page 7:

     What is not city or other made-over human habitat has been reduced to the monoculture of a single superplant (the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other heavy hitters are already working on this) that gives you everything you need and can be grown anywhere on the planet, in the Arctic or the tropics.

   • 2022, Robert A. Brady, Organization, Automation, and Society, page 252:

     The automobile industry, for example, had slowly been moving in this direction for a number of years, and the advantages realized from the trend may quite possibly make the River Rouge type of “Superplant” obsolete .

7. (dentistry) A type of prosthesis composed of a fixed saddle rigidly connected to one or more abutments, especially one with subperiosteal implants.
   • 1961, L. Izikowitz, “Report on Superplants”, in Journal of Implant Dentistry, volume 7, number 1, page 24:

     In a unilateral superplant, where there are two abutment teeth, often two teeth can be placed on the saddle without using an implant.

   • 1964, Charles Goodliffe Darlington, George W. Wilson, The Year Book of Dentistry, page 458:

     The superplant reduces the transversal movements of the root as compared with the single tooth in Figure 287, but the movably attached saddle increases the movements as compared with the single root.

   • 1970, Oral Research Abstracts - Volume 5, page 165:

     A unilateral lower jaw superplant has free-end saddles and an intermediary saddle;

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