Question

A gardener is experimenting with one of her African violet plants. This plant produces large, deeply colored flowers. She shows you two offspring from the plant. The first produces small, lightly colored flowers, while the second produces large, deeply-colored flowers. Which offspring was produced with vegetative reproduction? Which one was produced with sexual reproduction?

Answer 1

Answer:

The offspring with large, deeply colored flowers is produced from vegetative reproduction which the offspring with small, lightly colored flowers is produced from sexual reproduction.

Explanation:

Reproduction of a plant is the propagation of that plant and it occurs via the sexual or asexual means. The asexual means also called vegetative reproduction involves only one parents and the resulting offspring grows from a part of this parent. Sexual reproduction involves the union of sex cells from two parents (male and female).

In asexual or vegetative reproduction, the offsprings are genetically identical to the parent they emanate from while in sexual reproduction, the offsprings can be genetically different due to the process of recombination that occurs in gametes during their formation (meiosis). This allows for genetic variation among the offsprings.

Therefore, the offspring that resembles the parent i.e. large and deeply colored was likely produced by the vegetative or asexual means of reproduction while the offspring that exhibited a different characteristics from the parent was produced from sexual reproduction.