Amphicarpy is a

reproductive strategy Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual org ...

that occurs with 13 plant families, expressed mostly in species with an annual life cycle. It is characterized by production of two types of fruit, for different ecological roles. It is sometimes restricted to the situation where one fruit type is aerial and the other subterranean (hypogeous), and similar to, but distinguished from, heterocarpy, which latter means a plant that carries two distinct types of fruit or seeds. The word amphicarp is the contraction of the Greek words ''ἀμφί'' meaning "of both kinds" and ''καρπός'' meaning fruit. In a typical plant with amphicarpy, one fruit type is underground. These underground fruits usually develop from

self-pollinating Self-pollination is a form of pollination in which pollen from the same plant arrives at the stigma of a flower (in flowering plants) or at the ovule (in gymnosperms). There are two types of self-pollination: in autogamy, pollen is transferred to ...

flowers. The fruits that develop from the aerial flowers may often be the result of

cross-pollination Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds, most often by an animal or by wind. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, birds, ...

. Plants use this strategy to increase the chance that their genetic material is passed on. It can be referred to as bet hedging in which an organism produces several different

phenotypes In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological proper ...

. Seeds from the underground flowers have low genetic variability (due to their selfing), tend to be larger, and may germinate from within the tissues of the flower, so ensuring that the annual can remain at the site that was suitable to it in the preceding year. Seeds from aerial flowers usually have greater genetic variability, tend to be smaller, and may be spread further. This assists the colonization of new territory, but also helps the exchange of genetic material between populations. Worldwide, approximately 67 species exhibit amphicarpy, or 0.02% of the known species of flowering plants. Most of these 67 species occur in often disturbed or very stressful circumstances. 31 of the 67 species known to exhibit amphicarpy are in the family ''

Fabaceae The Fabaceae or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomenc ...

''. In Israel, a country that harbors many disturbed habitats, with eight out of a total flora of twenty five hundred species, a much higher percentage of 0.32% is amphicarpic. Species that use amphicarpy include '' Catananche lutea'', ''

Gymnarrhena micrantha ''Gymnarrhena'' is a deviant genus of plants in the family Asteraceae, with only one known species, ''Gymnarrhena micrantha''. It is native to North Africa and the Middle East, as far east as Balochistan. Together with the very different '' Cavea ...

'' and '' Polygala lewtonii''. ''

Trifolium polymorphum Clover or trefoil are common names for plants of the genus ''Trifolium'' (from Latin ''tres'' 'three' + ''folium'' 'leaf'), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume or pea family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus h ...

'' is a perennial, that combines amphicarpy with

vegetative reproduction Vegetative reproduction (also known as vegetative propagation, vegetative multiplication or cloning) is any form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment or cutting of the parent plant or spec ...

through

stolon In biology, stolons (from Latin '' stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as runners, are horizontal connections between organisms. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton; typically, animal stolons are external s ...

s. It grows in grasslands where its aerial flowers may not come into seed due to herbivores.

References

{{Reflist Plant reproduction