Plants that develop from runners or underground stems are clones of the plants that send out the runners and stems. Gardeners use such techniques as cuttage, grafting, and mound layering to produce clones of favored plants. World Book illustration by Marion Pahl Algae, fungi, and such simple plants as club mosses can reproduce asexually as well as sexually and can be cloned. Higher plants usually reproduce sexually and form seeds. Plant clones are useful for measuring the effects of various environmental factors or chemical compounds on genetically identical plants.
Breeders use cloning to collect plants with certain desired traits.
Farmers and gardeners raise apples, potatoes, and roses by means of clones. Hydras, flatworms, and other animals can be cloned through asexual reproduction or the process of regeneration. But most higher animals form clones naturally only when identical twins or other genetically identical multiple births occur. An experimental process An experimental technique has been developed for cloning certain higher animals. This process involves destroying the nucleus of an egg cell of the species to be cloned.