Competence can be regarded from the standpoint of the
plant or from the operator. Not all plant cells are competent
to differentiate, maybe because they are unable, or maybe
because the operator has not yet discovered how to make
these cells differentiate.

Therefore competent cells can be regarded as those who
retained the capacity for a particular kind of cellular
differentiation or morphogenesis, or have acquired
it in response to an appropriate stimulis.

Differentiation occurs when cells with an identical genetic
complement become different from each other and from
the cell from which they originated.When mature some of
these cells are living while others are dead.