Fruit Set, Fruit Reduction, and Fruiting Strategy in Cornus sanguinea (Cornaceae)

We studied various aspects of the fruiting biology of Cornus sanguinea (Cornaceae), a fleshy-fruit-producing deciduous shrub, in four populations in northwest Spain. One population was studied over a 5-yr period (1989-1994), and the remaining populations in 1994 only. Fruit-set level varied among years (range 11-18%) and among populations (range 8-22%), but was in all cases low. Within plants, fruit-set level did not vary significantly among inflorescences, indicating that inflorescence fruit set is independent of inflorescence position and inflorescence, phenology. To investigate the function of surplus flowers, we carried out flower removal experiments. Inflorescence fruit-set level was unaffected by removal of up to =75% of flowers. These results suggest that Cornus sanguinea regulates its fruit-set level via plasticity in the number of fruits aborted: if flower mortality has been high, fewer fruits will be aborted. Within the inflorescence, surplus flowers thus act as insurance against flower loss.