Sexual reproduction at the cellular level generally involves the following phenomena: the union of sex cells and their nuclei, with concomitant association of their chromosomes, which contain the genes, and the nuclear division called meiosis. The sex cells are called gametes, and the product of their union is a zygote. All gametes are normally haploid (having a single set of chromosomes) and all zygotes, diploid (having a double set of chromosomes, one set from each parent). Gametes may be motile, by means of whiplike hairs (flagella) or of flowing cytoplasm (amoeboid motion). In their union, gametes may be morphologically indistinguishable (i.e., isogamous) or they may be distinguishable only on the criterion of size (i.e., heterogamous). The larger gamete, or egg, is nonmotile; the smaller gamete, or sperm, is motile. The last type of gametic difference, egg and sperm, is often designated as oogamy. In oogamous reproduction, the union of sperm and egg is called fertilization. Isogamy, heterogamy, and oogamy are often considered to represent an increasingly specialized evolutionary series.

In the plants included in this article—bryophytes (mosses, hornworts, and liverworts) and tracheophytes (vascular plants)—sexual reproduction is of the oogamous type, or a modification thereof, in which the sex cells, or gametes, are of two types, a larger nonmotile egg and a smaller motile sperm. These gametes are often produced in special containers called gametangia, which are multicellular. In cases in which special gametangia are lacking, every cell produces a gamete. In oogamy, the male gametangia are called antheridia and the female oogonia or archegonia. A female gametangium with a sterile cellular jacket is called an archegonium, although, like an oogonium, it produces eggs. In most of the plants dealt with in this article, the eggs are produced in archegonia and the sperms in antheridia with surface layers of sterile cells.

The plant basis

Individual plants may be either bisexual (hermaphroditic), in which male and female gametes are produced by the same organism, or unisexual, producing either male or female gametes but not both. A bisexual individual, however, is not necessarily capable of fertilizing its own eggs. In certain ferns, for example, male gametes of one individual are not compatible with the female gametes of the same individual, so cross-fertilization (with another individual of the species) is obligatory. This situation, of course, is similar in adaptive significance to cross-pollination (which leads to cross-fertilization) among seed plants.

Among the liverworts, mosses, and vascular plants, the life cycle involves two different phases, often called generations, although only one plant generation is, in fact, involved in one complete cycle. This type of life cycle is often said to illustrate the “alternation of generations,” in which a haploid individual (i.e., with one set of chromosomes), or tissue, called a gametophyte, at maturity produces gametes that unite in pairs to form diploid (i.e., containing two sets of chromosomes) zygotes. The latter develop directly into individuals, or tissues, called sporophytes, in which the nuclei of certain fertile cells, called spore mother cells, or sporocytes, give rise to haploid spores (sometimes called meiospores). These spores are lightweight and are borne by air currents; they germinate to form the haploid, sexual, gamete-producing phase, usually designated the gametophyte.

There are several variations in the above-described life cycle. The haploid gametophyte and sporophyte may be free-living, independent individuals (e.g., certain algae and yeasts), in which case the life cycle is diplobiontic, or the sporophyte may be physically attached to the gametophyte, as it is in liverworts and mosses. By contrast, the gametophytic phases develop as parasites on the sporophytes of the seed plants, as in certain algae. In further variation, the alternating phases may be similar morphologically except for the type of reproductive cells (gametes or spores) they produce (isomorphic life cycle), or they may be strikingly dissimilar, as in some mosses, ferns, and seed plants (heteromorphic life cycle). Only heteromorphic life cycles occur in liverworts, mosses, vascular plants, and certain fungi.

The differences between the gametophyte and sporophyte are often great, especially those of the diplobiontic types, so the alternates seem to be two different, unrelated individuals rather than different manifestations of the same organism.