Hosta ventricosa is a perennial hermaphrodite which grows in a variety of habitats in China, including forest floors and edges, roadsides and open areas. Dr. Cao Guoxing of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) carried out an experiment to assess the relative importance of resource competition and architectural effects in pollen and ovule production on racemes of Hosta ventricosa.

　 Hosta ventricosa is widely distributed in Bifengxia National Nature Reserve, Yaan, Sichuan Province (30°04′N, 102°59′E), south-west China. The experiment was carried out in a relatively large population near the forest edge.

 Allocation of resources to floral traits often declines distally within inflorescences in flowering plants. Architecture and resource competition have been proposed as underlying mechanisms.

In the study, two levels of overall resource availability were created for reproduction in Hosta ventricosa (Hostaceae) by experimental defoliation before flowering. By combining two defoliation treatments (intact and defoliated) and two fruit-set ((no-fruit and fruit) treatments, the researchers assessed the roles of architecture and resource competition at each resource level.

 The study concluded that in flowering plants, the resources available to reproduction may come from stored organs and/or current foliar photosynthesis.

The study demonstrated that all else being equal, the relative importance of resource competition and architecture in allocation to floral traits within inflorescences may depend upon the resource pools for reproduction or overall resource availability of maternal plants.

The research entitled “The relative importance of architecture and resource competition in allocation to pollen and ovule number within inflorescences of Hosta ventricosa varies with the resource pools” has been published in Annals of Botany, 107: 1413–1419, 2011, doi:10.1093/aob/mcr085.