Moss Sporangia

Mosses are truly strange beings. To really grasp how strange, please follow this primitive explanation:

Have you ever wondered how mosses can grow on solid, bare rock? Sure! It's because they have no roots - only threadlike structures that anchor them. They absorb all water and nutrients directly through their leaves...

Humans and animals (and plants) have double sets of chromosomes in all cells (diploid cells). ONLY sex cells (sperms and eggs) have reduced the DNA through meiosis to single chromosomes (hapliod cells).

The "adult" moss plants are sort of like our sex cells, with half set of chromosomes (haploid). Male plants produce sperm-like cells that swim to the female plants in rain water and combine with the eggs, inside the female plant.

Now this embryo has double chromosome set (diploid). It grows a stalk from within the female, still diploid, and on top of this a sporangium with spores. This stalk/sporangium is the only part, ever, of a moss that has complete set of chromosomes!

NOW the moss reduce the chromosome number in the spores (by meiosis), not like other creatures that perform meiosis exclusively to produce sex cells.

Spores germinate, produce tiny threadlike structures from which male and female plants (haploid) grow......

Still confused? =)

There are mysteries down there in Miniature Land.

Done