Spanish moss, old man's beard, black moss, long moss, Tillandsia usneoides

dense festoons of greenish-gray hairlike flexuous strands anchored to tree trunks and branches by sparse wiry roots; southeastern United States and West Indies to South America

• air plant, epiphyte, aerophyte, epiphytic plant — plant that derives moisture and nutrients from the air and rain; usually grows on another plant but not parasitic on it

• Tillandsia, genus Tillandsia — large genus of epiphytic or terrestrial sparse-rooting tropical plants usually forming dense clumps or pendant masses