Budding - Types of Asexual Reproduction

In reproduction through budding, small groups of cells form buds in some part or parts of the parent animal. The bud grows, differentiates and finally forms a new adult individual. This adult may either stay attached to the parent as in colonial forms (sponges and many coelenterates) or pay separate from it to form an independent individual, like in Hydra. Figure shows budding in the common freshwater hydra. It first begins as a simple bulging of the ectoderm. Then both ectoderm and endoderm project outward in the form of a bud. Thereafter, the coelenteron as well extends into this little protuberance. The bud begins to grow in size, the tentacles start forming and a mouth appears. While the bud practically assumes the shape of a miniature hydra a constriction appears at its base that gradually narrows to a small point and ultimately the little bud hydra separates off to settle somewhere else as an independent hydra.