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. There are two forms of reproduction: asexual and sexual. In asexual reprod ...

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 arrives at the Stigma (botany), stigma of a flower (in flowering plants) or at the ovule (in gymnosperms) of the same plant. The term cross-pollination is used for the opposite case, where ...

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

cross-pollination Xenogamy (Greek ''xenos''=stranger, ''gamos''=marriage) is the transfer of pollen grains from the anther to the stigma of a different plant. This is the only type of cross pollination which during pollination brings genetically different types of ...

. 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 (physical form and structure), its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological properti ...

. 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 Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomen ...

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

Trifolium polymorphum Clovers, also called trefoils, are plants of the genus ''Trifolium'' (), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution with the highest diversity ...

'' is a perennial, that combines amphicarpy with

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

through

stolon In biology, a stolon ( from Latin ''wikt:stolo, stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as a runner, is a horizontal connection between parts of an organism. It may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton. Typically, animal ...

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

References

{{Reflist Plant reproduction