What Is a Stolon in Plants? Definition and Examples

A stolon, often called a runner, is a stem that creeps sideways along or just above the ground and grows new plants along its length.1PubMed. Developmental regulation of stolon and rhizome Every plant it makes is a copy of the parent, which is why a single strawberry or patch of grass can fill a bed by itself.2Plant Databases. What Is a Stolon in Plants? Definition and Examples The link is more than a way of spreading, because the stem keeps the young plant fed by its parent until it can survive alone.3PubMed. Strawberry plant relationship through the stolon Strawberries, creeping lawn grasses, spider plants and clover are familiar examples, and potatoes form theirs underground.

How a Stolon Is Built and How It Makes New Plants

Stolons grow from buds at the base of a plant, at the spots where a leaf joins the stem. They stretch out as long, bare stretches of stem broken by nodes, the joints where new growth can start. In strawberries the runner is a long shoot with two nodes that carries a young rosette at its tip.4PubMed. Strawberry plant relationship through the stolon When a node touches moist soil, it sends down roots and becomes a rooted daughter plant.5PubMed. Strawberry plant relationship through the stolon

To spot one on your own plant, look for a thin stem running across the soil surface, away from the crown. It will have small leaf clusters or root nubs at regular joints, and it often ends in a miniature version of the parent. Pull gently and you will feel it is still attached to the mother plant. Because they grow in light, stolons are often green and can make some of their own food.6PubMed. Proteome analysis of bermudagrass stolons and rhizomes provides new insights into the adaptation of plant stems to aboveground and underground growth

A stolon is not a root. Roots have no nodes or leaves and grow down into the soil, while a stolon runs along the top and can sprout leaves from its nodes.

The journey from runner to independent plant takes days to weeks in warm weather. Once rooted, the daughter can live even if the runner dies.

Plenty of plants have floppy stems that lie on the ground, and lying down alone does not make a stem a stolon. A stolon is usually longer and thinner than the plant’s leafy stems, with long bare stretches between nodes. The useful test is whether it forms a rooted or rootable daughter plant away from the crown. Some plants behave differently depending on conditions: a stem that never touches soil may dangle a baby plant in the air, as spider plants do.

Common Plants That Grow Stolons

One lawn can also contain several kinds of creeping stems. Bermudagrass and zoysia spread above ground by stolons and below ground by rhizomes, so they recover from damage from two directions: surface runners cover gaps while underground stems send up shoots. Centipedegrass relies on stolons alone, so it spreads along the surface and tends to thicken more slowly. Some zoysia types grow longer stolons faster than others, and faster stolon growth means bare spots close sooner. If you are unsure what your lawn does, lift the edge of a small patch of turf and look for surface runners, underground stems, or both.

A spider plant sends out long arching stems that end in small plantlets. Strawberry begonia does much the same, with thread-like runners carrying new plants out over the soil. You can leave the plantlets attached while they grow, or set them on potting mix to root.

Potatoes are the surprising case. They grow stolons underground from buds low on the stem.15Journal of Experimental Botany. Cell division and cell enlargement during potato tuber formation When tubers start, the stolon stops lengthening and its tip swells into a potato.16Journal of Experimental Botany. Cell division and cell enlargement during potato tuber formation Shorter days push the plant to put more growth into these underground stolons,17PubMed Central. Shoot, Stolon, and Tuber Formation on Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Cuttings in Response to Photoperiod and the number of stolons a plant makes helps set how many potatoes it yields.18PubMed. StLAX5 regulates stolon initiation to control the tuber number and productivity of potato

Stolon vs Rhizome vs Tuber

Both stolons and rhizomes are stems that make new plants, but stolons grow above ground and rhizomes grow beneath it.19PubMed. Developmental regulation of stolon and rhizome Rhizomes store more starch and sugar, while stolons lean toward making food from light.20PubMed. Proteome analysis of bermudagrass stolons and rhizomes provides new insights into the adaptation of plant stems to aboveground and underground growth Rhizomes also tend to keep plants connected longer, while stolons are built for fast spread.21New Phytologist. Evolution of clonal growth forms in angiosperms

A simple way to tell the three apart is to ask where the stem is and what it is doing. A creeping stem on or above the surface is a stolon, a creeping stem underground is a rhizome, and a swollen storage lump is a tuber. A rhizome can look like a root, but it has nodes, often with scale-like leaves and buds, and it sends up shoots from them. A tuber is the fattened end of an underground stem, built to store food rather than to spread widely.

Rhizomes let a plant survive underground through cold or drought, then send up shoots when conditions improve. Tubers give it a food reserve so a new shoot gets going quickly next season.

This matters when weeding. Pulling a stolon weed often clears it from the surface, though any rooted node left behind can regrow, while rhizome weeds hide pieces underground that regrow. Grasses with both need digging, not just raking.

How the Parent Plant Feeds Its Runners

Water and sugars move along strawberry runners both before and after the daughter roots.22PubMed. Resource sharing among ramets in the clonal herb, Fragaria chiloensis Unrooted daughter plants therefore get enough water and nitrogen to stay nearly as healthy as rooted ones.23PubMed. Resource sharing among ramets in the clonal herb, Fragaria chiloensis When the parent has plenty of light and water, feeding daughters does not slow its own growth.24PubMed. Resource sharing among ramets in the clonal herb, Fragaria chiloensis Shade or drought makes daughters draw more sugar from the parent.25PubMed. Resource sharing among ramets in the clonal herb, Fragaria chiloensis Connected plants can also move resources from rich patches of soil to poor ones.26PubMed Central. Strategies of resource sharing in clonal plants: a conceptual model and an example of contrasting strategies in two closely related species

A daughter that is still small or in a weak spot depends on this link more than one that is well established. Once it has strong roots and its own leaves, the runner can be cut.

The link can be a lifeline under stress. In alligator weed grown into polluted water, every cut-off daughter died. Still-connected daughters survived 85 to 100 percent of the time at moderate pollution.27Plant Species Biology. Effects of stolon severing on the expansion of Alternanthera philoxeroides from terrestrial to contaminated aquatic habitats

Plants also seem to choose where to settle. Clones put more daughter plants in rich, sunny patches,28PubMed Central. Ecological Consequences of Clonal Integration in Plants and ground ivy changes its leaf form when it reaches better spots. That is why runners can seem to aim for open, fertile ground.

Growing New Plants From Runners

Runners give genetically identical offspring, a reliable way to multiply a favorite plant.29Plant Databases. What Is a Stolon in Plants? Definition and Examples Strawberry runners grow best with long days and warm temperatures,30Strawberry: growth, development and diseases. Plant propagation techniques and types of plants so early to midsummer is a good time to root them.

To root a strawberry or spider plant runner, choose a daughter with a visible rosette. Press its node onto a small pot of moist potting mix set beside the parent, and hold it with a bent wire or small stone. Press the node gently into the surface rather than burying the plantlet, so the crown stays above the mix. Keep the runner attached so the daughter has water while its roots form, and keep the soil moist for two to three weeks. Snip the runner once a gentle tug meets resistance.

Pick the daughter nearest the parent, because it is the oldest and usually the most developed on that runner. Choose runners from a healthy, productive parent, since the daughter will have the same traits. Runners from diseased plants can carry the disease, especially viruses, into the daughters.

Lawns can be started the same way. Grasses like zoysia can be planted as stolon pieces, each needing a node in contact with soil, and faster-growing types cover ground sooner.

Should You Cut Off Strawberry Runners

Timing changes output. Strawberry plants whose runners were cut only every 63 days produced about 102 daughters each, but cutting every 7 days left just 16 daughters per plant.31HortScience. Timing of Stolon Removal Alters Daughter Plant Production and Quality in the Ever-bearing Strawberry ‘Albion’ With long intervals, runners and daughters took up over 86 percent of the plant’s growth.32HortScience. Timing of Stolon Removal Alters Daughter Plant Production and Quality in the Ever-bearing Strawberry ‘Albion’ Runners divert energy that could go into the mother plant and its fruit, so pinch them regularly if you want berries, and leave them if you want new plants.

Pinch or snip runners as they appear, close to the parent. Keep this up through the growing season.

You can still let some runners grow on purpose. Strawberry plants lose vigor with age, so many gardeners replace them with fresh daughters every few years. Let a few runners from your best plants root and cut the rest.

Why Some Stolon Plants Become Hard-to-Kill Weeds

Alligator weed stems break easily, and even a single-node piece can sprout a new plant.33PubMed Central. Vegetative propagation capacity of invasive alligator weed through small stolon fragments under different treatments Mowing, raking or floods can therefore spread it rather than stop it. Each node holds the buds and root-forming ability needed for a new plant, so a small piece left in the soil, or carried on a tool or boot, can start a new patch. When clearing, the question is whether any nodes remain.

Invasive stolon plants gain more from food stored in their stolons than related native plants do.34Flora: Morphology, Distribution, Functional Ecology of Plants. Clonal fragments of stoloniferous invasive plants benefit more from stolon storage than their congeneric native species Alligator weed also grows long stolons with less material than its native relative, letting it colonize faster.35PubMed Central. The invasive stoloniferous clonal plant Alternanthera philoxeroides outperforms its co-occurring non-invasive functional counterparts in heterogeneous soil environments – invasion implications

Widely spaced stolon plants quickly take over bare patches.36Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics. Effect of clonal growth form on the relative performance of species in experimental communities over time Hydrilla spreads outward through ponds by stolons, with parents feeding new plants.37Journal of Aquatic Plant Management. Vegetative Spread of Dioecious Hydrilla Colonies in Experimental Ponds

To control creeping weeds, remove whole plants including every runner piece, and bag the fragments rather than composting them. Avoid mowing or chopping through patches, which scatters pieces. Fill bare soil with dense plants or mulch to deny open space.