Plants and animals grow by mitotic …

Plants and animals both grow by mitotic divisions but their growth has certain differences:

• The plants can grow throughout their lifetime, which may be very short for annuals or very long for perennials. Animals grow for a certain period of time till they attain sexual maturity. After being sexually mature they stop growing in size.
• In perennial plants, there may be alternating periods of vegetative and reproductive growth.
• Plants have a high power of regeneration while higher animals lack this. True regeneration power is seen only in lower animals like planaria or echinnoderms. Among higher animals only some have the power of regeneration and that too of partial regeneration.
• For example, lizard can grow its tail back when amputated but not any other body part.
• In animals growth is diffused, that is growth divisions occur throughout the body, while in plants growth is restricted to localised areas called meristems where the growth divisions occur.
• Plant cells are pluripotent that they can develop into all other type of plant cells, but in animals this power is limited to the stem cells only.