Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The sporophyte develops from the zygote produced when a haploid egg cell is fertilized by a haploid sperm and each sporophyte cell therefore has a double set of chromosomes, one set from each parent. All land plants , and most multicellular algae, have life cycles in which a multicellular diploid sporophyte phase alternates with a multicellular ...
Four chambers (pollen sacs) lined with nutritive tapetal cells are visible by the time the microspores are produced. After meiosis, the haploid microspores undergo several changes: The microspore divides by mitosis producing two cells. The first of the cells (the generative cell) is small and is formed inside the second larger cell (the tube cell).
In seed plants, the gametophyte is even more reduced (at the minimum to only three cells), gaining all its nutrition from the sporophyte. The extreme reduction in the size of the gametophyte and its retention within the sporophyte means that when applied to seed plants the term 'alternation of generations' is somewhat misleading: "[s]porophyte ...
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.
This second feature is the origin of the term 'embryophyte' – the fertilized egg develops into a protected embryo, rather than dispersing as a single cell. [17] In the bryophytes the sporophyte remains dependent on the gametophyte, while in all other embryophytes the sporophyte generation is dominant and capable of independent existence.
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.
Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that involves a complex life cycle in which a gamete (haploid reproductive cells, such as a sperm or egg cell) with a single set of chromosomes combines with another gamete to produce a zygote that develops into an organism composed of cells with two sets of chromosomes . [1]
At a minimum, two of these cells are egg cells and the rest are haploid somatic cells, but more egg cells may be present and their ploidy, though typically haploid, may vary. [14] [17] In select Gnetophyta, the female gametophyte stays singled celled. Mitosis does occur, but no cell divisions are ever made. [13]