Til-lānd'si-ā, n.

n. [From Prof. Tillands, of Åbo, in Finland.] (Bot.) A genus of moss-like plants having thread-like, branching, pendulous stems, and thread-shaped leaves, common in the southern parts of the United States, where it grows on the branches of trees, forming long, hanging tufts; — called also long moss and black moss. Gray.

[Illustration] “Tillandsiæ can not bear water, and therefore I have given the name to a genus from a professor at Åbo, who, in his youth, having an unpropitious passage from Stockholm to that place, no sooner set his foot on shore than he vowed never again to venture himself upon the sea. He changed his original name to Tillands, which means on or by land; and when he had subsequently occasion to return to Sweden, he preferred a circuitous journey of two hundred Swedish miles through Lapland, to avoid going eight miles by sea.” Linnæus.