Chapter 39

Reproduction in plants

Most flowering plants display sexual reproduction
- Two gametes fuse to produce offspring with a unique combination of genes
They undergo Alternation of Generations
- Two multicellular life cycle stages
- diploid
  - Spore producing sporophyte
    - produces spores by meiosis
      - a type of cell division that results in four daughter cells each with half the number of chromosomes of the parent cell, as in the production of gametes and plant spores.
- haploid
  - Gamete producing gametophyte
    - produces gametes by mitosis
      - a type of cell division that results in two daughter cells each having the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus, typical of ordinary tissue growth.
Egg is Female
Sperm is Male

Sporophyte has become larger, more complex
- Flowering plants
  - Sporophyte independent
  - Dependent gametophyte is only a few cells contained within flowers
Gametophyte has become smaller, less complex
- Moss
  - Sporophytes small and dependent on gametohyte (Dominant form)
Female
- 7 cells
Male
- 2-3 cells