text: Totipotency is the theory that all plants should be able to reproduce a plant from a single cell.  This isn't true.  It really depends on what species of plant you take the tissue from , and where on the plant you got that tissue.  For instance, chances are that if you took xylem from a plant and retied to get a tissue culture to form, you would be out of luck, whereas leaves are probably a little more likely to respond favorably.  Ultimately though it depends on the horomones that are present in your culture medium- usually a mixture of auxins and cytokinins at a certain ratio.