(A)sexual reproduction of plants?

Question

Are all plants capable of sexual reproduction? Some can do asexual reproduction as well but I haven't found any plants that aren't capable of sexual reproduction. Is it correct to say all plants are capable of sexual reproduction?

Answer 1

Sexual reproduction is the dominant form of reproduction among all eukaryotic organisms, which includes all the known plants and animals. Sexual reproduction is the combination of genetic material that leads to offspring who are genetically distinct from their parent or parents. Plants accomplish this in several ways: you can have plants who are female (ex: producing seeds); male (ex: producing pollen); or hemaphroditic (ex: producing both!)

Many plants have the ability to also reproduce asexually, producing offspring that are genetically identical to the parent. There are two main ways this is accomplished, vegetative production and apomixis.

An example of vegetative reproduction is when a branch cutting roots and makes a whole new plant.

Some plants can also produce seeds without being fertilized, and those seeds grow up into genetic copies of the parent. That is an example of apomixis.

Some plants tend to reproduce more often with one method or another, but there are very very few eukaryotic organisms in general that have forsaken the evolutionary advantage and genetic diversity that reproducing sexually (mixing genes) allows them!

There are certainly plants that are commercially grown, like bananas, that are most commonly reproduced by artificial asexual reproduction. But even these plants, if left to their own devices, would be able to sexually reproduce.

Hope this answered your question!