Xeric

Zir-ick

Adjective

Characterized by or relating to only needing a small amount of moisture.

Most so-called air plants can be categorized as xeric.

While eventually tracing back to the Greek word xeros (meaning dry), this one only came to existence in 1926 when a bunch of botantists decided they needed a spiffy new word to describe desert plants.  Not everyone liked the idea, the Ecological Society of America stated that xeric was “not desirable,” preferring terms such as arid. Others declared that xeric should refer only to habitats, not to organisms. Scientists used it anyway, and by the 1940s xeric was well documented in scientific literature.