Question

Plants growing on sandstones are
A. Psammophytes
B. Oxylophytes
C. Lithophytes
D. Phanerophytes

Answer 1

Hint:- Any function of or part of an organism that helps it to survive under the conditions of its environment is called adaptation. Each organism, like the population or culture, develops those adaptations. Adaptations prevent the degradation of the essential vegetative tissues of the organism and help to enhance development.

Complete Answer:-
In 1895, on the idea of their water requirements and also on the definition of the existence of the substratum on which they grow, Warming categorised plants into several ecological classes.
He categorised plants into five classes on the notion of substratum(soil) composition.
1.Saline-soil plants (Halophytes).
2.Acidic-soil plants (Oxylophytes).
3.Plants which grow on the sand (Psammophytes).
4.Plants growing on rock surfaces (Lithophytes).
Lithophytes, the first inhabitants of rocky regions and the main agents of rock destruction, prepare the soil for plants which are more substrate-specific. Typically bacteria and algae initially populate a stone, then crustate and scum lichens, then leaf lichens and mosses (which accumulate a layer of humus), and finally higher-plant lithophytes.
The composition of communities of lithophytes depends on the slope's exposure and steepness, the quality of the moisture and snow cover, the degree of weathering of the rock, and other factors. The crevices become deeper and wider as the root systems of lithophytes expand, facilitating the degradation of the rock and the distribution of higher plants. The word "lithophytes" is also more loosely understood, meaning only those plants that are isolated from the surface of a stone (epilithic plants).

So, the correct answer is option (C).

Note:- The term 'lithophytes' is often more broadly understood, meaning only those plants that occupy the surface of a stone (epilithic plants) as differentiated from those that deliberately implant itself and destroy the rock (lithophaga plants) and those that in depressions and fissures of rock populate the detritus and primary soil (chasmophytes) (chasmophytes).