Caputia pyramidata flowering at Kew

Some of the perennial herbs we studied are 'income breeders' - they make minimal investment to belowground storage and invest far more to leaf growth during the reproductive season. An example of this is the late flowering Agrimonia eupatoria

Rhizomes are plant stems that, rather than growing towards the light, grow belowground and produce roots and shoots at their nodes. Rhizomes can make up a small or a large proportion of plant biomass and we were interested in what drives these differences between species.