Sprouting extends the regeneration niche in forests. By sprouting, clonal plants play an important role in recovery of vegetation after disturbance. Many common species that make up a significant part of species diversity in forests have the potential for clonal growth or reproduction. Clonal reproduction contributes to the maintenance of species diversity, especially in clonal plant communities. Current understanding about clonal plants comes from studies of clonal herbs or shrub species in grassplot or gardens, and knowledge about clonal tree species in natural forest community is limited. Our aim is to explore the influence of habitat heterogeneity on the phenotypic plasticity of Cleyera pachyphylla, a main clonal tree species in evergreen forests, and its advantages and disadvantages in terms of life history. A 5-hm² (250 m × 200 m) forest dynamic plot (FDP) of Baishanzu was established in July 2003, where all trees with dbh (diameter at 1.3 m breast height) ≥1 cm and seedlings (with true leaves and dbh ≤1 cm) of tree species were tagged, mapped, measured (dbh for trees and diameter at ground for seedlings), and identified to a given species. In 2008 and 2013, all the woody plants alive during the previous investigation were measured, their living states were examined, and other individuals that reached 1cm dbh during the previous 5-years were tagged, mapped, measured, and identified. In August 2011, we investigated sprouting propagation characteristics of 298 randomly selected genets of C. pachyphylla in the 5 hm² Baishanzu forest dynamic plot (FDP). For each genet, data of the number of sproutings, dbh, or ground diameter (when dbh < 1 cm) of each sprouting, and distance and direction from each sprouting to its parent ramet were collected. The habitat of each genet was classified into one of the four habitat types (Gully, Steep slope, Mild slope, and Ridge). The data show that the amount of sprouting per genet differs among the 298 clones of C. pachyphylla. Most sprouting (82.79%) are close to (less than 30 cm) their parent ramets. Our variation analysis shows there is no significant difference among four different habitats in terms of the amount of sprouting per genet and parent-daughter distance, but Spearman correlation test shows that the former is positively related to the size of parent ramet. The amount of sprouting on the eastern side of the parent ramet is significantly higher (pairwise t-test) than that on the western side, which indicates that sprouting of C. pachyphylla is phototropic. Size distributions of the 298 clones and of the whole population are different by the χ² test. In particular, the proportions of seedlings and small saplings in clones were higher than in the whole population, which suggests the lower success of clonal propagation probably due to serious density-dependence. Logistic regression does not show significant correlation between survival of a parent ramet during 2011 to 2013 and the amount of sproutings, which indicates that the clonal propagation of C. pachyphylla is not at the cost of parent survival.