Some secondary forests in lowland of Sumatra are dominated by Schima wallichii, a pioneer species that vigorously resprouts. S. wallichii has to store the resource for resprouting, but it has to invest the resource in growth to compete against other species for light at the same time. Consequently there should be a trade-off between sproutability and rapid growth.

We grew S. wallichii and other two species, Acacia mangium and Trema orientalis, in 3 different light conditions to observe their growth and responses against stem clipping.

S. wallichii's height growth was slower than those of the other 2 species while its weight growth was faster than that of T. orientalis. The allocation rate to root was highest in S. wallichii. The success rate of resprouting after clipping was positively correlated with the root weight in S. wallichii and T. orientalis. Furthermore resprouting shoot size was also positively correlated with the root weight in S. wallichii. Thus the higher allocation to the root clearly increased the sproutability of S. wallichii and the trade-off between aboveground growth rate and sproutability could be true in the species.