Vegetative Reproduction

Vegetative reproduction is a form of asexual reproduction in which a bud grows and develops into a complete new plant, without any gamete formation or fusion. The buds capable of doing this may form on any of three organs - root, stem or leaf - and at some stage the young plant detaches from its parent and continues to grow independently. Many of the organs that carry out vegetative reproduction do double duty as organs of food storage and perennation (surviving an unfavourable season underground), which is why so many vegetatively propagating structures - tubers, bulbs, corms and rhizomes - are also familiar storage organs. The basic reproductive unit used in this kind of propagation, whether it forms naturally or is deliberately used by a horticulturist, is called a reproductive propagule or diaspore. Vegetative reproduction in flowering plants is conventionally split into two broad categories that are treated separately in this chapter: natural methods, in which the plant itself produces propagules such as tubers, bulbs, runners and offsets without an …