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Mosses do not have seeds and after fertilisation develop sporophytes with unbranched stalks topped with single capsules containing spores. They are typically 0.2–10 cm (0.1–3.9 in) tall, though some species are much larger. Dawsonia, the tallest moss in the world, can grow to 50 cm (20 in) in height. There are approximately 12,000 species. [2]
Many club-moss gametophytes are mycoheterotrophic and long-lived, residing underground for several years before emerging from the ground and progressing to the sporophyte stage. [4] Lycopodiaceae and spikemosses (Selaginella) are the only vascular plants with biflagellate sperm, an ancestral trait in land plants otherwise only seen in bryophytes.
Plant reproduction is the production of new offspring in plants, which can be accomplished by sexual or asexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction produces offspring by the fusion of gametes , resulting in offspring genetically different from either parent.
Marchantia, an example of a liverwort (Marchantiophyta) An example of moss (Bryophyta) on the forest floor in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Bryophytes (/ ˈ b r aɪ. ə ˌ f aɪ t s /) [1] are a group of land plants (embryophytes), sometimes treated as a taxonomic division, that contains three groups of non-vascular land plants: the liverworts, hornworts, and mosses. [2]
The production of gemmae is a widespread means of asexual reproduction in both liverworts and mosses. In liverworts such as Marchantia, the flattened plant body or thallus is a haploid gametophyte with gemma cups scattered about its upper surface. The gemma cups are cup-like structures containing gemmae.
Young sporophytes of the common moss Tortula muralis. In mosses, the gametophyte is the dominant generation, while the sporophytes consist of sporangium-bearing stalks growing from the tips of the gametophytes Sporophytes of moss during spring In flowering plants, the sporophyte comprises the whole multicellular body except the pollen and ...
Moss spores germinate to form an alga-like filamentous structure called the protonema. It represents the juvenile gametophyte . While the protonema is growing by apical cell division, at some stage, under the influence of the phytohormone cytokinin , buds are induced which grow by three-faced apical cells.
All other living groups of land plants have a life cycle dominated by the diploid sporophyte generation. It is in the diploid sporophyte that vascular tissue develops. In some ways, the term "non-vascular" is a misnomer. Some mosses and liverworts do produce a special type of vascular tissue composed of complex water-conducting cells.