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This shows that four spores shared a common origin and were initially in contact with each other forming a tetrahedron. [3] A wider aperture in the shape of a groove may be termed a colpus. [8] The number of colpi distinguishes major groups of plants. Eudicots have tricolpate spores (i.e. spores with three colpi). [9]
The sporophyte produces spores (hence the name) by meiosis, a process also known as "reduction division" that reduces the number of chromosomes in each spore mother cell by half. The resulting meiospores develop into a gametophyte. Both the spores and the resulting gametophyte are haploid, meaning they only have one set of chromosomes.
Plant spores are most obvious in the reproduction of ferns and mosses. However, they also exist in flowering plants where they develop hidden inside the flower. For example, the pollen grains of flowering plants develop out of microspores produced in the anthers. Reproductive spores grow into multicellular haploid individuals or sporelings.
In other plants, such as hazel, some flowers have only stamens, others only carpels, but the same plant (i.e. sporophyte) has both kinds of flower and so is monoecious. Flowers of European holly, a dioecious species: male above, female below (leaves cut to show flowers more clearly)
Most non-vascular plants, as well as many lycophytes and most ferns, are homosporous (only one kind of spore is produced). Some lycophytes, such as the Selaginellaceae and Isoetaceae, [7]: 7 the extinct Lepidodendrales, [8] and ferns, such as the Marsileaceae and Salviniaceae are heterosporous (two kinds of spores are produced).
Microscopic photo of spores (in red) of Selaginella. The large three spores at the top are megaspores whereas the numerous smaller red spores at the bottom are microspores. Megaspores, also called macrospores, are a type of spore that is present in heterosporous plants. These plants have two spore types, megaspores and microspores.
Since most plants carry both male and female reproductive organs in their flowers, there is a high risk of self-pollination and thus inbreeding. Some plants use the control of pollen germination as a way to prevent this self-pollination. Germination and growth of the pollen tube involve molecular signaling between stigma and pollen.
Modern heterosporous plants such as many ferns exhibit endospory, in which a megagametophyte is fertilized by a microgametophyte all while still inside the spore wall, gaining nutrients from the inside of spore. [6] Both heterospory and endospory seem to be one of the many precursors to seed plants and the ovary.