Bryophytes. Vegetables, plants. Vegetal kingdom. Flora.

Nature of Aragon > Flora

Bryophytes are cryptogamous plants, that is, they do not have flowers and reproduce by spores.

They have female organs called archegonia, so they are archegoniades. This organ contains the female cell called the oosphere, and, in parallel, the male organ called the antheridium develops.

Bryophytes are intermediate plants between thallophytes (with a thallus) and cormophytes (with a complete plant body), since they have organs similar to roots, stems, leaves, etc.

They are classified as liverworts and mosses.

The liverworts

They are bryophytes that are found in humid places with a thallus provided with rhizoids (a type of roots), which serve to attach and absorb food. They do not have conducting vessels but they do have highly specialized cells. They have "small stems" with archegonia (female gametophytes) and antheridia (male gametophytes).

Sexual cycle of a liverwort.

Liverworts reproduce by alternating, sexual and asexual generation. Through the formation of propagules or buds, which develop inside "baskets", they give rise to new plants, which in turn give rise to sexual gametophytes that produce spores.

The mosses

They are bryophyte plants that grow in a wide variety of conditions, from water to rocks. Most of them live in humid soils, in trunks, in tree bark.

There are nearly 16,000 species, among which are some so small that they are almost invisible, and others can measure several centimeters thick.

Mosses 0
The mosses.

The "little leaves" of the mosses are arranged in a spiral around the "stem", which are neither leaves nor stems, since, like all bryophytes, they do not have conductive vessels.

Musgos
Mosses.

There are many peat producers, others that grow on granite rocks and others that extend into other environments.

Biological cycle of mosses

Mosses develop from a seedling with male and female stems (gametophytes), at the end of which the antheridia and archegonia appear.
Once fertilized, the archegonium transforms into a sporophyte, which produces spores.

These plants can live dried out for a long time, but, after the rains, the dry mosses green up and become active.

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