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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.
The second more recent hypothesis is that spores were an early predecessor of land plants and formed during errors in the meiosis of algae, a hypothesized early ancestor of land plants. [18] Whether spores arose before or after land plants, their contributions to topics in fields like paleontology and plant phylogenetics have been useful. [18]
[citation needed] In the seed plants, the largest groups of which are the gymnosperms and flowering plants (angiosperms), the sporophyte phase is more prominent than the gametophyte, and is the familiar green plant with its roots, stem, leaves and cones or flowers. In flowering plants, the gametophytes are very reduced in size, and are ...
Flowering plants contain microsporangia in the anthers of stamens (typically four microsporangia per anther) and megasporangia inside ovules inside ovaries. In all seed plants, spores are produced by meiosis and develop into gametophytes while still inside the sporangium. The microspores become microgametophytes (pollen).
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.
In heterosporous seedless vascular plants, modified leaves called microsporophylls bear microsporangia containing many microsporocytes that undergo meiosis, each producing four microspores. Each microspore may develop into a male gametophyte consisting of a somewhat spherical antheridium within the microspore wall.
The stages of germination of a pea plant: A. seed coat, B. radicle, C. primary root, D. secondary root, E. cotyledon, F. plumule, G. leaf, H. tap root. The part of the plant that first emerges from the seed is the embryonic root, termed the radicle or primary root. It allows the seedling to become anchored in the ground and start absorbing water.
Pollen itself is not the male gamete. [4] It is a gametophyte, something that could be considered an entire organism, which then produces the male gamete.Each pollen grain contains vegetative (non-reproductive) cells (only a single cell in most flowering plants but several in other seed plants) and a generative (reproductive) cell.