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As in animals, female and male gametes are called, respectively, eggs and sperm. In extant land plants, either the sporophyte or the gametophyte may be reduced (heteromorphic). [2] No extant gametophytes have stomata, but they have been found on fossil species like the early Devonian Aglaophyton from the Rhynie chert. [3]
The sporophyte of a flowering plant is often described using sexual terms (e.g. "female" or "male") based on the sexuality of the gametophyte it gives rise to. For example, a sporophyte that produces spores that give rise only to male gametophytes may be described as "male", even though the sporophyte itself is asexual, producing only spores.
It is dioicous: male plants produce only antheridia in terminal rosettes, female plants produce only archegonia in the form of stalked capsules. [26] Seed plant gametophytes are also dioicous. However, the parent sporophyte may be monoecious, producing both male and female gametophytes or dioecious, producing gametophytes of one gender only.
Early land plants had sporophytes that produced identical spores (isosporous or homosporous) but the ancestors of the gymnosperms evolved complex heterosporous life cycles in which the spores producing male and female gametophytes were of different sizes, the female megaspores tending to be larger, and fewer in number, than the male microspores ...
The gymnosperms (/ ˈ dʒ ɪ m n ə ˌ s p ɜːr m z,-n oʊ-/ ⓘ nə-spurmz, -noh-; lit. ' revealed seeds ') are a group of woody, perennial seed-producing plants, typically lacking the protective outer covering which surrounds the seeds in flowering plants, that include conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, and gnetophytes, forming the clade Gymnospermae [2] The term gymnosperm comes from the ...
The male gametophyte gives rise to sperm cells, which are used for fertilization of an egg cell to form a zygote. Megaspores are structures that are part of the alternation of generations in many seedless vascular cryptogams , all gymnosperms and all angiosperms .
The male reproductive structures of Polytrichum juniperinum. The sporophyte of Polytrichum juniperinum. It is a dioecious plant, meaning that the male and female gametophytes are on separate plants. Juniper haircap moss have very obvious male and female parts.
The sexuality of pteridophyte gametophytes can be classified as follows: Dioicous: each individual gametophyte is either male (producing antheridia and hence sperm) or female (producing archegonia and hence egg cells). Monoicous: each individual gametophyte produces both antheridia and archegonia and can function both as a male and as a female.