Are saplings the same thing as cuttings?

A cutting is a piece you cut off of something, like a leaf or bit of stem.

A sapling is a whole something, like a small (but not totally baby) tree.

GA for un-ugly Laureth. I was going to say something about cuttings and saplings, but it would have been all complex and annoying.

Saplings are mini-trees. They have roots.

So a sapling is more like a bulb than a cutting?

A bulb is a root from which leaves spring, like an onion or a tulip. A sapling is just a small tree.

No. Sapling is to tree as toddler is to adult. A bulb is a small round thing like an onion.

A sapling is a tree whose root ball you can still carry and dig a hole for.

I gotcha. They are all very different things. Perfect.

Some plants come from seeds. Others come from bulbs.
They’re not necessarily different stages of the same plant.

Saplings are like baby plants.
And cuttings are cut from mature plants.
(Like a branch.) But you can also root cuttings.

@crisedward: Google them all and check the images.

Thanks, all!

One distinction between cuttings and seedlings (I think that might have been the word in question) is that taking cuttings is asexual reproduction of a plant. i.e. you get a plant identical, genetically to its parent.
Seedlings are the result of pollenation which is sexual reproduction, and the plant is genetically different from its parent.

Example: Take a cutting of helleborus (lenten rose) [if you can] and the cutting will bloom true to its parent, however, if you grow helleborus from seed, even from similar plants, the result may bloom completely differently from either of the parents.

Fun things to know and do with plants

@Grisson Was coming back to point out that distinction.
But seems like you’ve already got it covered.
Though I think you explained it much nicer than I would have.

Oh, well. While I’m already here…
sapling = young tree
seedling = young plant

A sapling is a tree that is at an age too young to have branched.

Saplings are shoots of trees (young trees) while cuttings are broken or cut from an existing tree (below the fork of little branches) and allowed to ‘root’, usually in water, in order to plant them. I hope that helps.

Saplings are not shoots of trees; they are trees (adolescent ones).
Few woody cuttings root; forsythia, willow and pussy willow come to mind.