3. their body is erect/prostate and is attached to substratum by multi/unicellular rhyzoids.
4. main plant body is haploid(n). it produces gaemetes, thus are called gaemetophyte.
5. sex organs are multicellular
6. sexual reproduction
6.1. male gaemete is known as antheridium and produces antherozoids
6.2. female gaemete is known as archaegonia and produces egg
6.3. atherozoids are released in water where they come in contact with egg and fuse with it to produce zygote
6.4. the zygote doesn't goes under meiosos but produces a multicellular body called sporophyte
6.5. this sporophyte is attached to the photosynthetic gaemetophyte and takes nutrients from it.
6.6. after some time, some cells of sporophyte go under reduction division to form main plant body gaemetophyte.
7. also known as amphibians of plant kingdom because though they grow on land, but they need water for sexual repro.
8. help in plant succession on bare rocks
9. lack true roots, stem or leaves but do possessroot, stem and leaf like structure.
10. liverworts
10.1. found in moist, shady areas, mainly near banks of rivers
10.2. plant body is thalloid.
10.3. thalus is dorso-ventrical and attached to substratum.
10.4. leafy members have tiny leaf like appendages grown in 2 rows on the stem-like structure.
10.5. asexual reproduction by fragmentation. it can also occur by formation of special bodies called gammae.
10.6. these gammae are multicellular, asexual buds that develop on a strctr. called gammae cups located on thalli.
10.7. gammae later detatch from the parent body to form new individual.
10.8. in case of sexual repro. the sporophyte formed is differentiated into foot, seta and capsule.
10.9. eg. marchantia.
11. mosses
11.1. the gaemetophyte here has 2 stages:-
11.2. 1. the protonema stage is directly developed from spores. it is a green, creepy, branched and filamentous stage in the life of mosses.
11.3. 2. leafy stage:- it is developed from 2ndary protonema as a lateral bud. it consists of a slender axes bearing spirraly arranged leaves. they're attached to soil by multicellular, branched rhizoids.
11.4. sexual organs are present in the leafy stage.
11.5. vegetative repro. by fragmentation and budding in 2ndary protonema.
11.6. sporophyte formed consists of foot, seta and capsule.
11.7. the sporophyte of mosses is more elaborate than that of liverworts and even uses more advanced mechanism to germinate.
11.8. eg:- funaria, sphagnum, polytrichum.
12. ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE
12.1. mosses provide food for herbacious mammals, birds and other animals.
12.2. sphagnum, a moss provides peat that is used as fuel.
12.3. it is also used as a packaging material for transshipment of various living material because it has greater water holding capacity.
12.4. mosses along with lichens are 1st to collonise rocks. they decompose rocks and make it suitable for the growth of higher plants.
