{{Short description|Type of plant reproduction}} [[File:Spigelia genuflexa geocarpy.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Geocarpy in ''Spigelia genuflexa'']] thumb|Peanut fruits forming below the ground.
'''Geocarpy''' is "an extremely rare means of plant reproduction",<ref>{{cite book |author1=J. D. Skinner |author2=Christian T. Chimimba |year=2005 |title=The Mammals of the Southern African Sub-region |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521844185 |chapter=Order Tubulidentata |pages=35–40 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iqwEYkTDZf4C&pg=PA39}}</ref> in which plants produce diaspores within the soil.<ref name="Oudtshoorn">{{cite book |author=Karen van Rheede van Oudtshoorn & Margaretha W. Van Rooyen |year=1999 |title=Dispersal Biology of Desert Plants |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-540-64886-4 |chapter=Geocarpy |pages=117–118 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bdTfBfsl-DcC&pg=PA117}}</ref> This may occur with subterranean flowers (protogeocarpy), or from aerial flowers, parts of which penetrate the soil after flowering (hysterocarpy). It has evolved as an effective means of ensuring a suitable environment for the plant's offspring.<ref name="Oudtshoorn"/>
Geocarpy is also linked with solifluction soils, where rapid thawing and freezing of surface soil causes almost continuous movement.<ref name=Agnew>{{cite journal|last1=Agnew|first1=A.D.Q.|last2=Hedberg|first2=O.|title=Georcapy as an adaptation to afroalpine solifluction soils|journal=Journal of the East Africa Natural History Society and National Museum|date=1969|volume=XXVII|issue=3|page=215|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/content/part/EANHS/XXVII_No.3_118__215_1969_Agnew.pdf|access-date=14 September 2015}}</ref> This phenomenon is prevalent in high altitude areas of East Africa.<ref name=Agnew /> In order to reproduce, geocarpic plants bend their stems so that the fruit can be embedded in the soil during the freezing process while the fruit is still attached to the plant itself.<ref name=Agnew />
Geocarpy is most frequent in tropical or semi-desert areas,<ref name="Oudtshoorn"/> and geocarpic species may be found in the families Araceae, Begoniaceae, Brassicaceae (Cruciferae), Callitrichaceae, Convolvulaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Fabaceae (Leguminosae), Loganiaceae, Moraceae and Rubiaceae.<ref name="Oudtshoorn"/><ref name="Brassicaceae">{{cite book |editor1=Renate Schmidt |editor2=Ian Bancroft |year=2010 |title=Genetics and Genomics of the Brassicaceae |volume=9 |series=Plant Genetics and Genomics |publisher=Springer |isbn=9781441971180 |chapter=Brassicaceae in agriculture |author=Suzanne I. Warwick |pages=33–66 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tMYiyo0A4XAC&pg=PA42}}</ref><ref name="Popovkin">{{cite journal |author1=Alex V. Popovkin |author2=Katherine G. Mathews |author3=José Carlos Mendes Santos |author4=M. Carmen Molina |author5=Lena Struwe |year=2011 |title=''Spigelia genuflexa'' (Loganiaceae), a new geocarpic species from the Atlantic forest of northeastern Bahia, Brazil |journal=PhytoKeys |issue=6 |pages=47–65 |doi=10.3897/phytokeys.6.1654|pmid=22287919 |pmc=3261033 |doi-access=free }}</ref> The best-known example is the peanut (''Arachis hypogaea'').
==References== {{reflist|32em}}
Category:Botany
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