Raunkiaer's Life Forms | Ecology | B.Sc. & M.Sc. Botany

Raunkiaer (1934) has classified plants according to the place where the growth point is located during the less favorable seasons, provided the plant maintains the capability to survive these difficult conditions (see list and figure here below). Depending on the place on earth, this unfavorable period can be for example in the cold winter period or in the dry summer time. In our regions the growth point in the unfavorable season correspond mostly to winter buds. 

Here is the key:

A. Woody plants, or herbaceous evergreen perennials.......

1. Plants that grow taller than 25-50 cm, or whose shoots do not die back periodically to that height limit...............Phanerophytes

2. Plants whose mature branch or shoot system remains peren nially within 25-50 cm above ground surface, or plants that grow taller than 25-50 cm, but whose shoots die back peri odically to that height limit.......Chamaephytes

3. Perennial (including biennial) herbaceous plants with periodic shoot reduction Periodic shoot reduction to a remnant shoot system that lies relatively flat on the ground surface.....Hemicryptophytes

4. Periodic reduction of the complete shoot system to storage organs that are imbedded in the soil.......Geophytes (Cryptophytes)

2. Annuals. Plants whose shoot and root system dies after seed production one year and which complete their whole life cycle within.... Therophytes.


Reference: Mueller-Dombois, Dieter & Ellenberg, H.. (1967). A Key to Raunkiaer plant life forms with revised subdivisions. Ber. geobot. Inst.. 37.