[b said:
Quote[/b] ]So, this is the conclusion: Two different plants of similar species can pollinate, provided they have different genetic combinations? Hence that excludes all plants from tissue culture, because even though they are separate plants, they have seemingly identical genetic combinations. Is that right?
the conclusion is this: any member of the same species can polinize another of the same species and have fertile offspring AS LONG as they're NOT clones (of the same plant). a clone has the exact same genetic information as the plant it was cloned from.
let's say you have plant A and plant B. they both have different genetic codes. If you make a clone of plant A (A1) and a clone of plant B(B1) you CANNOT cross plant B with plant B1, because either plant would think that the other's pollen is it's own and would therefore reject it. (same w/ A and A1)
BUT you CAN pollinate plant A with B and A with A1.
the whole purpose of sexual reproduction is to shuffle the genes and allow for differences (otherwise we'd look exactly like our parent(s) )
here's how a clone is made: (basically if you reproduce without having sex which is by
root cuttings, leaf cuttings, stem cuttings, tissue culture, etc. (an exeption is identical twins... in animals)
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] I think seandew was the one who said we are all the same in an effort to explain the meaning of a species...
I never said that.... I said that we're 99.9% the same in our genes... we have millions and millions of genes so even .1 % of difference makes an african (tall, black, curly hair, etc) and a chinese (short, white, straight hair, etc) different.
if you must, think about this...
if you have an identical twin (a clone... you both have the EXACT SAME genetic info and that's why you look EXACTLY the same), you'd NEVER be able to mate w/ them (you made me resort to this analogy!!! lol) and have fertile offspring.
BUT... if you or your twin would mate with the twin of another person (since we humans only have one sex, they'd need to be of the opposite sex) you WOULD be able to have fertile offspring.
There are some plants that CAN self fertilize, and they can have fertile offspring by pollinizing their own flowers or by being pollinized by it's clone or any other member of it's own species.
is that clear now? I ain't very good at explaining stuff