Crown sprouting
Encyclopedia
Crown sprouting is the ability of a plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

 to regenerate its shoot system
Shoot
Shoots are new plant growth, they can include stems, flowering stems with flower buds, and leaves. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop...

 after destruction (usually by fire) by activating dormant vegetative structures to produce regrowth from the root crown
Root crown
A root crown is that part of a root system from which a stem arises. Since roots and stems have quite different vascular anatomies, major vascular changes take place at this point....

 (the junction between the root and shoot portions of a plant). These dormant structures take the form of lignotuber
Lignotuber
A lignotuber is a starchy swelling of the root crown possessed by some plants as a protection against destruction of the plant stem by fire. The crown contains buds from which new stems may sprout, and a sufficient store of nutrients to support a period of growth in the absence of...

s or basal epicormic buds. Plant species that can accomplish crown sprouting are called crown resprouters (distinguishing them from stem or trunk resprouters
Resprouter
Resprouters are plant species that are able to survive fire by the activation of dormant vegetative buds to produce regrowth.Plants may resprout by means of lignotubers at the base or epicormic buds on the trunk or major branches....

) and, like them, are characteristic of fire-prone habitats such as chaparral
Chaparral
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico...

.

In contrast to plant fire survival strategies that decrease the flammability
Flammability
Flammability is defined as how easily something will burn or ignite, causing fire or combustion. The degree of difficulty required to cause the combustion of a substance is quantified through fire testing. Internationally, a variety of test protocols exist to quantify flammability...

 of the plant, or by requiring heat to germinate, crown sprouting allows for the total destruction of the above ground growth. Crown sprouting plants typically have extensive root systems in which they store nutrients allowing them to survive during fires and sprout afterwards. Early researchers suggested that crown sprouting species might lack species genetic diversity; however, research on Gondwana
Gondwana
In paleogeography, Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland, was the southernmost of two supercontinents that later became parts of the Pangaea supercontinent. It existed from approximately 510 to 180 million years ago . Gondwana is believed to have sutured between ca. 570 and 510 Mya,...

n shrubland suggests that crown sprouting species have similar genetic diversity to seed sprouters. Some genera
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

, such as Arctostaphylos
Arctostaphylos
Arctostaphylos is a genus of plants comprised by the manzanitas and bearberries. They are shrubs or small trees.There are about 60 species of Arctostaphylos, ranging from ground-hugging arctic, coastal, and mountain species to small trees up to 6 m tall. Most are evergreen , with small oval...

and Ceanothus
Ceanothus
Ceanothus L. is a genus of about 50–60 species of shrubs or small trees in the buckthorn family Rhamnaceae. The genus is confined to North America, the center of its distribution in California, with some species in the eastern United States and southeast Canada, and others extending as far south...

, have species that are both resprouters and not, both adapted to fire.

California Buckeye, Aesculus californica
Aesculus californica
Aesculus californica is a species of buckeye that is native [ |] to California and southwest Oregon [Jackson, County], and the only buckeye native to these states.-Description:...

, is an example of a western USA tree which can regenerate from its root crown after a fire event, but can also regenerate by seed.
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