Question

bryophytes features and life cycle ?want the clear and to da point answer plz

Answer 1

A bryophyte is a type of green, seedless plant that includes the mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. Bryophytes do not have flowers and are classified as non-vascular plants, which means they do not have vascular tissue.

Life cycle of bryophytes

Bryophytes are gametophyte dominant, meaning that the more prominent, longer-lived plant is the haploid gametophyte.[6] The diploid sporophytes appear only occasionally and remain attached to and nutritionally dependent on the gametophyte. In bryophytes, the sporophytes are always unbranched and produce a single sporangium (spore producing capsule).

Liverworts, mosses and hornworts spend most of their lives as gametophytes. Gametangia (gamete-producing organs), archegonia and antheridia, are produced on the gametophytes, sometimes at the tips of shoots, in the axils of leaves or hidden under thalli. Some bryophytes, such as the liverwort Marchantia, create elaborate structures to bear the gametangia that are called gametangiophores. Sperm are flagellated and must swim from the antheridia that produce them to archegonia which may be on a different plant. Arthropods can assist in transfer of sperm.[7]

Fertilized eggs become zygotes, which develop into sporophyte embryos inside the archegonia. Mature sporophytes remain attached to the gametophyte. They consist of a stalk called a seta and a single sporangium or capsule. Inside the sporangium, haploid spores are produced by meiosis. These are dispersed, most commonly by wind, and if they land in a suitable environment can develop into a new gametophyte. Thus bryophytes disperse by a combination of swimming sperm and spores, in a manner similar to lycophytes, ferns and other cryptogams.

The defining features of bryophytes are:
Their life cycles are dominated by the gametophyte stage.
Their sporophytes are unbranched.
They do not have a true vascular tissue containing lignin (although some have specialized tissues for the transport of water)