Question

Draw a diagram to describe the life cycle of the moss, pointing out significant features.

Answer 1

Hint: Mosses belongs to the bryophytes. They use water as a medium for fertilization (fusion of the two gametes). Moreover, it is also called an amphibian of the plant kingdom.

Complete answer:
Moss is a special kind of plant. It is a bryophyte means that they can survive in soil as well as water. It is found growing in moist and shady areas. They are referred to as the amphibians of the plant kingdom. They are majorly dependent on water for sexual reproduction to take place.
Now let us take a look at its lifecycle.
-The primary stage of moss is the gametophyte stage. The gametophyte stage further consists of two different stages called protonema and leafy stage. The protonema directly develops from the spores.
-It is a green and filamentous stage. The leafy stage on the other hand is developed from secondary protonema as a lateral bud. This stage consists of the lateral axis on which leaves are spirally arranged. This stem-like structure attaches to soil with the help of multicellular or unicellular rhizoids or roots. This is the stage when sex organs are developed.
-The sex organs are multicellular antheridium is the male sex organ and they produce antherozoids as male gametes. Archegonium is the female sex organ. It produces a single egg in its flask-shaped vessel. The water acts as a medium to take antherozoids near the egg. These two structures fuse to form the zygote.
-The zygote then undergoes multiple divisions and not the reduction division. This produces a sporophyte structure. The sporophyte stays attached to the gametophyte to derive its nourishment. After some time the sporophyte cells undergo reduction division to form haploid spores.
-These spores again will germinate to continue the same procedure.

Note: The mosses are not algae. They do look like algae but are more specialized than them. Like algae, they attach to substratum for growth but they also develop rhizoids. Also, they lack true leaves, stem, and roots but do have leaf-like, root-like, and stem-like differentiated structures.