A Gardener Is Digging Up Some of Her Strawberry Plants

A gardener is digging up some of her strawberry plants. She knows that strawberries reproduce via vegetative reproduction; however, she finds no evidence of horizontal stems connecting her strawberry plants. She concludes that she has a unique population of strawberry plants-they reproduce sexually versus asexually. Why is this conclusion NOT necessarily correct?

A) This conclusion is correct. The lack of horizontal stems definitively proves that these strawberry plants reproduce sexually and not through vegetative reproduction.
B) Horizontal stems can be transient structures, and may degrade or disappear over time. Thus, there may be no (visible) evidence of vegetative reproduction.
C) Horizontal stems are never visible to the naked (human) eye; vegetative reproduction must be demonstrated through genetic sequence comparisons.
D) The gardener is mistaken-strawberry plants never exhibit vegetative reproduction.