Vascular epiphytes are found in more than 70 different families and make up 9-10% of the 290,000 described species of vascular plants. Despite their significant contribution to vascular flora diversity, they have received far less attention in population genetic studies than their terrestrial counterparts. This study had three goals: (I) Provide a comprehensive literature review on the population genetics of vascular epiphytes to answer questions such as, which taxa have been surveyed and where did these studies take place? What types of molecular markers have been used? What types of population genetic measures have been reported? What are the general findings across different taxa? And what journals have published these sorts of studies? (II) Develop a DNA extraction technique for an ecologically and culturally important epiphytic plant, Tillandsia usneoides (Spanish moss) that produces high yields of DNA while also minimizing possible contaminants that could affect downstream processes. (III) Asses the utility of cross-species transference as a method to develop usable microsatellite DNA primers for T. usneoides. In the literature review, I found 25 published studies in 13 journals that studied population genetics of vascular epiphytes, representing three taxonomic families in seven countries and four continents. To date, seven types of molecular markers have been used. Interestingly, these markers do not follow typical usage trends that has been observed in other groups, with allozymes being used more frequently than microsatellite DNA, and with no published studies to date that have used SNPs. Taxonomic and geographic biases in the population genetic literature reflect general patterns observed in the ecological literature, with most studies conducted in North America and focused on Orchidaceae (41%), Polypodiaceae (36%) and Bromeliaceae (23%). Due to the diversity of life history strategies observed in epiphytes, it is difficult to generalize population genetic results across taxa; nevertheless, in ferns, there was evidence of high gene diversity and genotype frequencies that conformed to Hardy-Weinberg expectations, whereas results were more variable for orchids and bromeliads. It is difficult to generalize results across the different taxa studied, this is believed to be reflect the diversity of life history strategies observed in epiphytes. For the DNA extraction study, we found that a modified CTAB extraction produced the highest yield and highest quality DNA. Utilizing extracted DNA from T. usneoides, cross-species transference of microsatellite primers from seven different taxa in the family Bromeliaceae was assessed. Of the 36 primer sets that were screened, we identified 15 loci that produced fragments that were close in size to what was reported in the primer notes, but only 7 of the 15 loci produced polymorphic loci without other apparent abnormalities. For the seven loci, the number of alleles ranged from 2 to 12. Although limited in number, the primer sets that we identified should be sufficient for assessing broad scale population genetic patterns in T. usneoides. Keyword 1: Epiphytes Keyword 2: Cross-species transference Keyword 3: Tillandsia usneoides