caespitosus

Caespitosus is a Latin adjective used in the scientific names of many organisms, most often plants, to denote a tufted or clump-forming growth habit. The term derives from caespes, turf or sod, with the suffix -osus meaning full of or abounding in. In botanical nomenclature, caespitosus appears as the masculine form; feminine caespitosa and neuter caespitosum are used to agree with the gender of the genus.

Because it is an epithet rather than a taxon, caespitosus occurs in diverse species across genera rather than indicating a single lineage. A well-known example is Deschampsia caespitosa, the tufted hairgrass, which forms dense tussocks in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere and is common in ecological studies of grasslands. The epithet signals a tufted habit rather than a shared ancestry, and the same epithet may appear in unrelated genera.

Beyond botany, the root caesp- appears in other Latin-based taxonomic names, and the term caespitosus is sometimes used informally to describe plants with tufted growth forms. In botanical descriptions, it is akin to the growth-form term caespitose—tufted or tussock-forming—used to characterize morphology and habitat adaptation.