Abstract:

The invasiveness, clonal form and geographical origin of invasive clonal plant species in China were analyzed based on some literature reviews. Of the 515 invasive plant species in China, at least 196 (38.1%) were clonal plant species. These invasive clonal plant species belong to 46 families, and most of them are from Gramineae, Asteraceae and Leguminosae. The majority of the invasive clonal plant species were introduced intentionally by human activity. In the 1-5 invasiveness ranks, most invasive clonal plant species belong to the rank 5 (i.e. species requiring further observation). Chi-square tests showed that species invasiveness ranks did not significantly depend on the presence/absence of clonality, but that they significantly depended on the presence/absence of rhizomes. Perennial and annual herbs accounted for the majority of the 196 invasive clonal plant species. Many invasive clonal herbs reproduce asexually by tillers, stolons or rhizomes. The primary geographical origin of these invasive clonal plant species was America. The results suggest that in future attention should be paid when rhizomatous clonal plant species or clonal plant species from America are introduced. However, our methods may have underestimated the number and proportion of invasive clonal plant species because of limited information about modes of reproduction in the literature. Thus, fieldwork should be conducted to check the clonality of each species to accurately analyze the number and proportion of invasive clonal plant species in China in future.

Key words: invasive plant species, clonality, clonal reproduction, growth form, geographical origin