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Temporal separation of male and female reproductive function. It can reduce self-fertilization without requiring separate male and female flowers.

A hermaphrodite is an organism with both male and female reproductive functions. Those functions can occur together or at different times in the life history. The term concerns reproductive capacity, rather than requiring a particular external body shape.

Hermaphrodite individuals can still outcrossing: producing both kinds of gametes does not guarantee self-fertilization. Compatibility mechanisms and the timing or position of reproductive structures determine which combinations can actually form a zygote.

Plant genetics studies inherited variation and its transmission in plants. Alleles, chromosomes, meiosis and fertilization connect molecular differences to offspring genotypes and phenotypes. Self-fertilization, outcrossing and asexual reproduction produce different patterns of relatedness and genetic mixing.

A practical example is plant breeding: crossing two lines combines parental alleles, but genetic linkage can keep an unwanted variant close to a desired one. Distinguishing the causal variant from neighbouring markers is therefore essential when interpreting an inherited association.

Maintenance of reproductive output when access to compatible partners or pollen is unreliable. Autonomous self-fertilization can provide it in suitable self-compatible plants, but bisexuality alone does not guarantee that outcome.

Self-pollination transfers pollen within one plant, either within a flower or between its flowers. It describes the transfer step, whereas self-fertilization requires successful fusion of gametes from the same individual.

A self-incompatibility system can prevent a self-pollination from yielding successful fertilization. Observing pollen on a stigma therefore does not by itself establish which parent produced a later seed.

Sexual reproduction is reproduction involving fusion of gametes and a life cycle in which meiosis reduces the number of chromosome sets. Fertilization then combines parental contributions. Sexual reproduction can occur through self-fertilization in a hermaphrodite, so two separate individuals are not an essential part of its definition.

In a simple diploid example, a parent with two alleles at a genetic locus transmits one through each haploid gamete. Meiosis, genetic recombination and fertilization create new combinations of existing alleles; mutation supplies new sequence variants. Alternation of generations shows that a multicellular haploid phase can intervene between meiosis and production of gametes.