#sporophyte

[microcosmicobservations]

[mostlythemarsh]

Low Life

[cinnamonfright]

What a gametophyte over here holy

[revretch]

Everyone compares pollen to semen, but it's not the same thing at all.

See, with flowering plants, what you're seeing is the sporophyte. It doesn't actually have sex itself. Instead, plants that have "female" parts have separate little plants growing inside their flowers. These are the female gametophytes, which do have sex.

However, plants with "male" parts don't have male gametophytes in them. Instead, they have pollen, which will become male gametophytes when it gets to a female gametophyte.

In other words, pollen isn't like sperm--it's like an egg with little men in it.

[greeneryfeels]

A sporophyte sprouts from moss, its main goal is to spread spores to further develop the growth of the colony. Without any roots, moss expands through a vascular system, all interconnected together.

I’ve bought a book about moss recently and I’m obsessed.

[futurebird]

None of you thought it might be important to tell me that ferns have sperm that swim???

So.

None of you thought it might be important to tell me that ferns have sperm that swim??? I just had to find all this out on my own?

And, (apparently, & no one thought to bring this up either🙄) fern plants are only one form… they have this 'other form' (tiny, ephemeral, difficult to find in the wild) alternates generations-- Fern spores don't grow into ferns! (WHAT) they grow into 'gemetophytes' (WHAT) THEN you get a fern.

Feel like I've uncovered a massive scandal.

[mossgirllibrary]

Sporophyte Snax

[tiny-glued-things]

Some plant bits for display: botanical model of a moss sporophyte, fern fossil, large pinecone, botanical model of a fruit cross section.

It was interesting trying to make educational models of plant parts that would be magnified because they're for teaching, yet still read as in-scale. Think my fruit should probably have been bigger, and I wasn't able to make the moss spores small enough.