Hi everybody,
I am a member of the PomWorldwide forum, which is dedicated to everything related to the pomegranate trees. Here is a message posted by a member that reveals some intriguing information about propagating plants by cuttings. It might be true that plants grown from the cuttings of the same mother-tree could have different leaf shapes and different taste or appearance of the fruit!

Recent research indicates that vegetative propagation have faster than expected mutations in the clones. In fact clones aren't actually identical. Don't argue with me, but argue with the authors of this interesting article:

Why Plant 'Clones' Aren't Identical

ScienceDaily (Aug. 8, 2011) — A new study of plants that are reproduced by 'cloning' has shown why cloned plants are not identical.

Scientists have known for some time that 'clonal' (regenerant) organisms are not always identical: their observable characteristics and traits can vary, and this variation can be passed on to the next generation. This is despite the fact that they are derived from genetically identical founder cells.

Now, a team from Oxford University, UK, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, believe they have found out why this is the case in plants: the genomes of regenerant plants carry relatively high frequencies of new DNA sequence mutations that were not present in the genome of the donor plant.

The team report their findings in this week's Current Biology.

'Anyone who has ever taken a cutting from a parent plant and then grown a new plant from this tiny piece is actually harnessing the ability such organisms have to regenerate themselves,' said Professor Nicholas Harberd of Oxford University's Department of Plant Sciences, lead author of the paper. 'But sometimes regenerated plants are not identical, even if they come from the same parent. Our work reveals a cause of that visible variation.'

Using DNA sequencing techniques that can decode the complete genome of an organism in one go (so-called 'whole genome sequencing') the researchers analysed 'clones' of the small flowering plant 'thalecress' (Arabidopsis). They found that observable variations in regenerant plants are substantially due to high frequencies of mutations in the DNA sequence of these regenerants, mutations which are not contained in the genome of the parent plant.

'Where these new mutations actually come from is still a mystery,' said Professor Harberd. 'They may arise during the regeneration process itself or during the cell divisions in the donor plant that gave rise to the root cells from which the regenerant plants are created. We are planning further research to find out which of these two processes is responsible for these mutations. What we can say is that Nature has safely been employing what you might call a 'cloning' process in plants for millions of years, and that there must be good evolutionary reasons why these mutations are introduced.'

The new results suggest that variation in clones of plants may have different underlying causes from that of variation in clones of animals -- where it is believed that the effect of environmental factors on how animal genes are expressed is more important and no similar high frequencies of mutations have been observed.

Professor Harberd said: 'Whilst our results highlight that cloned plants and animals are very different they may give us insights into how both bacterial and cancer cells replicate themselves, and how mutations arise during these processes which, ultimately, have an impact on human health.'

Reference: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110804212931.htm

University of Oxford (2011, August 8). Why plant 'clones' aren't identical. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 19, 2011, from

Yes, genetic mutations can occur on "a branch" of a mother tree, And that branch can have different growing and fruiting characteristics than that of the mother tree. Sometimes a better fig results from the mutation. That is what we call a "Bud Sport". 

FYI.....supposedly the "Southern" (not the southeastern) Brown Turkey is a Bud Sport of a regular Celeste fig  mother.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Dan,
My understanding of the article is that every single cutting in the process of rooting becomes in some way (less or more visible) different from the mother tree. Therefore, if analyzed by their DNA structure, there are not two identical fig trees on this planet. Of course, we cannot see all those differences, but they exist.

The differces are very small if you took a cutting from a cutting and so on for 100 generations there will be some noticable differences from the mother tree.
But like Dan says sometimes the tree has a bud sport and if that is cloned then you have a new variety.
Bud sports can be very miner and anytime you look over a large batch of plants grown from cuttings say 10,000 you will see variations in that batch that is where nurseries find that new variety of hedge plant that replaces the old one

IMO, Bayou Gene's Cajun Gold (AKA LSU Gold not) is a bud sport of LSU Gold. Cajun Gold is a very productive and sweet fig. It is more productive than the "officially released" LSU Gold figs that I have seen.

Mutations do occur in cloned figs and sometimes for the better.............

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

I do agree that a cutting will not always be the same as the mother tree, especially if it is outside the area where the mother tree is growing, ie growing in new york vs california.  It is genotypically identical but it is showing differences based on it's environment.  I also believe some plants,if you take 100 cuttings you will at least 30 different plants, close but not identical, I just think they are close to the same but there are some small differences, some are slower, some are weaker etc.

And it depends on the type of plant some are very stable and some types are not.
 loropetalum for instance is very unstable and any large block of them will have many variations in color or growth habit.