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Club-mosses (Lycopodiales) are homosporous, but the genera Selaginella (spikemosses) and Isoetes (quillworts) are heterosporous, with female spores larger than the male. [2] As a result of fertilisation, the female gametophyte produces sporophytes.
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.
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".
Chloroplasts (green discs) and accumulated starch granules in cells of Bryum capillare. Botanically, mosses are non-vascular plants in the land plant division Bryophyta. They are usually small (a few centimeters tall) herbaceous (non-woody) plants that absorb water and nutrients mainly through their leaves and harvest carbon dioxide and sunlight to create food by photosynthesis.
Lycopodiaceae (homosporous lycophytes) split off from the branch leading to Selaginella and Isoetes (heterosporous lycophytes) about ~400 million years ago, during the early Devonian. The two subfamilies Lycopodioideae and Huperzioideae diverged ~350 million years ago, but has evolved so slowly that about 30% of their genes are still in ...
As an illustration, consider a monoicous moss. Antheridia and archegonia develop on the mature plant (the gametophyte). In the presence of water, the biflagellate sperm from the antheridia swim to the archegonia and fertilisation occurs, leading to the production of a diploid sporophyte. The sporophyte grows up from the archegonium.
In the homosporous families Lycopodiaceae and Huperziaceae, spores germinate into bisexual free-living, subterranean and mycotrophic gametophytes that derive nutrients from symbiosis with fungi. In Isoetes and Selaginella, which are heterosporous, microspores and megaspores are dispersed from sporangia either passively or by active ejection. [8]
Most heterosporous plants there are two kinds of sporangia, termed microsporangia and megasporangia. Sporangia (clustered in sori) on a fern leaf Equisetum arvense strobilus cut open to reveal sporangia. Sporangia can be terminal (on the tips) or lateral (placed along the side) of stems or associated with leaves.