How do plants reproduce?
Different ways of reproduction
Nonvascular Plants
Nonvascular plants don't have xylem and
phloem.
Nonvascular plants move water, nutrients and
food from one cell to another.
This is why nonvascular plants do not grow
very tall.
Nonvascular plants do not have flowers, so they
can't reproduce with seeds.
Instead they reproduce with spores.
Def: Spores--a singular reproductive cell that
Simple Vascular Plants
This type of plant includes ferns, and there are
more than 11,000 kinds of ferns.
They reproduce with spores, just like
nonvascular plants.
Like mosses, ferns produce both male and
female cells that unite and make a zygote.
Cone-bearing Vascular
Plants
Most vascular plants reproduce with seeds.
One type produces seeds with no protection
around them.
The other type produces seeds protected by
some kind of fleshy, sugary fruit.
Plants with unprotected seeds are called
gymnosperms.
The most common type of gymnosperm are the
conifers or pine trees.
Most conifers produce both male and female
Flowering Vascular Plants
Most of the plants you are familiar with are
flowering plants or angiosperms.
There are more than 235,000 kinds of
angiosperms on Earth.
These include grasses, herbs, shrubs, and many
trees.
Flowers are important to the success of the
plant reproducing. They make sure that
pollen gets from one part of the flower to the
other part. (male to female).
flowering vascular plants
continued
Angiosperms must be pollinated by insects and
other small animals. (birds, humans, dogs,
etc.)
The color, shapes, odors of the plants and fruits
attract these animals, who then carry the
pollen and seeds to other areas.
Angiosperms produce fruits that protect the
seeds. These include apples, tomatoes,
peanuts, acorns.
A fruits serves as a protective covering that
The fleshy covering protects the seeds from
predators like deer. The deer may eventually
eat the seeds inside the fruit, but they may
still survive.
The fleshy covering protects and offers food for
the seeds when they need it later.
Seed Dispersal
Once the eggs/seeds of a plant have been
fertilized and the fruits have formed, the
plant is ready to release the seeds.
If the fruit falls right next to the parent plant,
the chances of it growing to maturity are low.
But plants are adapted to disperse, or scatter,
the fruits and seeds to places far away from
the parent plant.
Maple trees disperse their seeds with wingshaped spinners.
continued
Some seeds require animals to help move them.
Squirrels will bury acorns and forget about
them. A oak tree may then sprout from the
acorn and grow.
Other seeds require the animal to eat the seed
first and be "dropped" at a different site.
Some seeds are covered by a bur, which sticks
to animal hides (and our pants) and then is
dropped at another location.