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Pollen tube elongation is an integral stage in the plant life cycle. The pollen tube acts as a conduit to transport the male gamete cells from the pollen grain—either from the stigma (in flowering plants) to the ovules at the base of the pistil or directly through ovule tissue in some gymnosperms.
The nucleus of the tube cell has meanwhile passed into the tube, as does also the generative nucleus, which divides (if it has not already) to form two sperm cells. The sperm cells are carried to their destination in the tip of the pollen tube.
After the pollen tube enters the gametophyte, the pollen tube nucleus disintegrates and the two sperm cells are released; one of the two sperm cells fertilises the egg cell (at the bottom of the gametophyte near the micropyle), forming a diploid (2n) zygote. This is the point when fertilisation actually occurs; pollination and fertilisation are ...
The pollen is carried to the pistil of another flower, by wind or animal pollinators, and deposited on the stigma. As the pollen grain germinates, the tube cell produces the pollen tube, which elongates and extends down the long style of the carpel and into the ovary, where its sperm cells are released in the megagametophyte.
These form the binucleate endosperm mother cell. This leaves three remaining nuclei on the micropylar end and three remaining nuclei on the antipodal end. The nuclei on the micropylar end is composed of an egg cell, two synergid cells, and the micropyle, an opening that allows the pollen tube to enter the structure. [4]
In the most common type of megagametophyte development in flowering plants (the Polygonum type), three mitotic divisions are involved in producing the gametophyte, which has seven cells, one of which (the central cell) has two nuclei that later merge to make a diploid nucleus.
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An endosperm is formed after the two sperm nuclei inside a pollen grain reach the interior of a female gametophyte or megagametophyte, also called the embryonic sac.One sperm nucleus fertilizes the egg cell, forming a zygote, while the other sperm nucleus usually fuses with the binucleate central cell, forming a primary endosperm cell (its nucleus is often called the triple fusion nucleus).