Question

Select the monocarpic plant out of the following:
A. Bamboo
B. Litchi
C. Mango
D. All of these

Answer 1

Hint: The plants which flower once in their lifetime are known as monocarpic plants. Plants like bamboo, rice, wheat and radish flower once during their entire lifetime and then die.

Complete answer:
To know the correct answer to the question, we must first know more about the monocarpic plants. Some plants flower once and then they die. Such plants are known as monocarpic plants. While there are some plants which flower multiple times before dying. Such plants are called polycarpic. For example: Mango is a polycarpic plant because we see that in mango plants, fruits grow multiple times before the tree completes its life cycle.
 Hence, the correct answer to this question is Bamboo. Bamboo is a monocarpic plant.

Additional information:
The term “monocarpic” was for the very first time used by Alfonso de Candolle.
Monocarpic plants are also called hepaxanth or semelparous plants.
Monocarpic plants can live upto several years before flowering. But once they flower, it induces certain changes inside the plants that result in the death of the plant.
Some plants might take as long as 100 years to flower and they do so, they die afterwards.

Note: Bamboo plant is monocarpic and might take several years to bloom after which it eventually dies. Some bamboo plants complete their entire life cycle in 40-50 years during which they flower only once.
Further, Mango and Litchi are examples of polycarpic fruit because we can see them flowering and bearing fruits almost every year.