Re: Curious Me

If a flowering plant is fertilized with it's own pollen,
is the new plant a "clone" (i.e. genetically indentical)
to the "parent" plant?

No. The pollen contains half the chromosomes (one of each pair) of the
"mother" and the ovum will also contain half but,
A) some in each half may be the same thus, the two halves are not the same
as the whole,
B) during the formation of the gamete nuclei there is recombination of the
genetic material (genes) thus, the chromosomes are not identical to those of
the mother, and
C) during any copying of DNA mutations may be formed and mutations may have
occurred during the growth of the plant or gamete formation.

A selfed plant is going to be genetically more similar to the mother than
one resulting from cross-pollination.

A clone is a product of asexual reproduction.

Louis Chinnery
lec@caribnet.net

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