Age of maturity and life span in herbaceous, polycarpic perennials

A review of age of maturity in herbaceous, polycarpic perennials found that the most common year of earliest maturity for wild and cultivated conditio ns was the second year of life, followed by the first year and then the thi rd year. A comparison of age of maturity in wild and cultivated conditions for individual taxa confirmed the assumption that perennials generally do n ot mature sooner in the wild than in cultivation. This validated use of the pattern for maturity in cultivation (second year or later) against which t o judge that for maturity in the wild. For plants of the same age of maturi ty, those with clonal growth had longer life spans than did those with litt le or no clonal growth. This difference in life span was more pronounced fo r plants of first- and second-year maturity than it was for those of later maturity. Herbaceous, polycarpic perennials in the wild generally were eith er short-lived with first-year maturity or long-lived with later maturity. These results were also true for nonclonal taxa only. For application to th e real world, theoretical plant-population models must take these results i nto account.