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Heterospory evolved due to natural selection that favoured an increase in propagule size compared with the smaller spores of homosporous plants. [2] Heterosporous plants, similar to anisosporic plants [clarification needed], produce two different sized spores in separate sporangia that develop into separate male and female gametophytes.
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.
Plants that are homosporous produce spores of the same size and type. Heterosporous plants, such as seed plants , spikemosses , quillworts , and ferns of the order Salviniales produce spores of two different sizes: the larger spore (megaspore) in effect functioning as a "female" spore and the smaller (microspore) functioning as a "male".
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 ...
Agronomic studies often focus on the above-ground part of plant biomass, and consider crop growth rates rather than individual plant growth rates. Nonetheless there is a strong corollary between the two approaches. More specifically, the ULR as discussed above shows up in crop growth analysis as well, as: = . = .
Some lycophytes are homosporous while others are heterosporous. [5] When broadly circumscribed, the lycophytes represent a line of evolution distinct from that leading to all other vascular plants, the euphyllophytes, such as ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants.
In heterosporous plants (water ferns, some lycophytes, as well as all gymnosperms and angiosperms), there are two distinct types of sporangia, each of which produces a single kind of spore that germinates to produce a single kind of gametophyte. However, not all heteromorphic gametophytes come from heterosporous plants.
The plants have intercalary meristems in each segment of the stem and rhizome that grow as the plant gets taller. This contrasts with most seed plants, which grow from an apical meristem - i.e. new growth comes only from growing tips (and widening of stems). Horsetails bear cones (technically strobili, sing. strobilus) at the tips of some stems.