Polycarpic plants are those that

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

and set seeds many times before dying. A term of identical meaning is pleonanthic and

iteroparous Semelparity and iteroparity are two contrasting reproductive strategies available to living organisms. A species is considered semelparous if it is characterized by a single reproductive episode before death, and iteroparous if it is characteri ...

. Polycarpic plants are able to reproduce multiple times due to at least some portion of its

meristems The meristem is a type of tissue found in plants. It consists of undifferentiated cells (meristematic cells) capable of cell division. Cells in the meristem can develop into all the other tissues and organs that occur in plants. These cells conti ...

being able to maintain a

vegetative state A persistent vegetative state (PVS) or post-coma unresponsiveness (PCU) is a disorder of consciousness in which patients with severe brain damage are in a state of partial arousal rather than true awareness. After four weeks in a vegetative stat ...

in some fashion so that it may reproduce again. This type of reproduction seems to be best suited for plants who have a fair amount of security in their environment as they do continuously reproduce. Generally, in reference to life-history theory, plants will sacrifice their ability in one regard to improve themselves in another regard, so for polycarpic plants that may strive towards continued reproduction, they might focus less on their growth. However, these aspects may not necessarily be directly

correlated In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics ...

and some plants, notably

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

, do not follow this general trend and actually show a fairly long lifespan with frequent reproduction. To an extent, there does seem to be an importance of the balance of these two traits as one study noted how plants that had a very short lifespan as well as plants that had a very long lifespan and also had little reproductive success were not found in any of the nearly 400 plants included in the study. Due to their reduced development, it has been noted how polycarpic plants have less energy to reproduce than

monocarpic Monocarpic plants are those that flower and set seeds only once, and then die. The term is derived from Greek (''mono'', "single" + ''karpos'', "fruit" or "grain"), and was first used by Alphonse de Candolle. Other terms with the same meaning are ...

plants throughout their lifetimes. In addition, as its lifespan increases, the plant is also subject to more inconveniences due to its age, and thus might focus more towards adapting to it, resulting in less energy the plant is able to spend on reproduction. One trend that has been noticed throughout some studies is how quicker lifespans generally impact how quickly the plants increasingly expend their energy towards reproduction. However, the specific structure of polycarpic strategies depends on the specific plant and all polycarpic plants do not seem to have a uniform pattern of how energy is expended on reproduction. These strategies are not concrete and these strategies are also subject to being impacted by the random environmental factors or other functions of the plant itself. The threat of competition might also be influential in how polycarpic plants choose to reproduce. Some studies show that while the competition itself may not be impactful, the plants can still be subject to danger through concerns such as diseases and more. Even if polycarpic plants are faced with competition, there are many ways they might respond to it such as focusing more on growth than reproduction in the hopes that they would eventually overcome the competition to successfully reproduce, or, on the other hand, the threat of elimination of the species might be too large that the plant focuses more strongly on reproduction, but this would ultimately impact their development, diminishing both their ability to grow and reproduce. This study reports that generally, when pressured, the polycarpic plant seems to focus more on reproduction, which may help them against competition as it allows them to become less overwhelmed. Generally,

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of t ...

plants will choose to focus on reproduction while

woody plants A woody plant is a plant that produces wood as its structural tissue and thus has a hard stem. In cold climates, woody plants further survive winter or dry season above ground, as opposite to herbaceous plants that die back to the ground until sp ...

will generally endure it as woody plants are usually able to endure more as well as live longer than herbaceous plants, which generally have a shorter lifespan, would.

References

{{Reflist Plant morphology

See also

References