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The life cycle of a dioicous bryophyte. The gametophyte (haploid) structures are shown in green, the sporophyte (diploid) in brown. Like all land plants (embryophytes), bryophytes have life cycles with alternation of generations . [ 11 ]
Genera such as Rhynia have a similar life-cycle but have simple tracheids and so are a kind of vascular plant. [44] It was assumed that the gametophyte dominant phase seen in bryophytes used to be the ancestral condition in terrestrial plants, and that the sporophyte dominant stage in vascular plants was a derived trait.
By contrast, mosses and other bryophytes have only a single set of chromosomes and so are haploid (i.e. each chromosome exists in a unique copy within the cell). There is a period in the moss life cycle when they do have a double set of paired chromosomes, but this happens only during the sporophyte stage.
The entire gametophyte generation, with the sole exception of pollen grains (microgametophytes), is contained within the sporophyte. The life cycle of a dioecious flowering plant (angiosperm), the willow, has been outlined in some detail in an earlier section (A complex life cycle). The life cycle of a gymnosperm is similar.
The gametophyte is the first and dominant phase of two alternating phases in a bryophyte's life cycle. This part of the life cycle consists of protonema (the preliminary stage where the propagule develops green thread-like filaments), the rhizoids (filaments growing beneath the bryophyte that help anchor the bryophyte to its substratum), the stem, the leaves, its reproductive structure ...
When this happens, the sperm and egg cell fuse to form a zygote, the cell from which the sporophyte stage of the life cycle will develop. Unlike all other bryophytes, the first cell division of the zygote is longitudinal. Further divisions produce three basic regions of the sporophyte.
Liverworts, like other bryophytes, have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, with the sporophyte dependent on the gametophyte. [13] The sporophyte of many liverworts are non-photosynthetic, but there are also several that are photosynthetic to various degrees. [14]
A protonema (plural: protonemata) is a thread-like chain of cells that forms the earliest stage of development of the gametophyte (the haploid phase) in the life cycle of mosses. When a moss first grows from a spore , it starts as a germ tube , which lengthens and branches into a filamentous complex known as a protonema , from which a leafy ...