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Advantage of being small - dont have to invest in support structures and vascular tissues
Not true vascular tissue, much simpler than that of higher plants
Tiny leaves are scale like sheets only one cell thick
Roots are tiny rhizoids - a few epidermal cells that anchor the plant to the soil
The sporophyte generation grows out of the tissues of the gametophyte, and depends on
its parent for nutrition
Sperm swims through thin film of water from the antheridium to the archegonium
The male and female plant share a cigarette, discuss old times
Diploid zygote develops into the adult sporophyte, a small green stalk growing out of the
top of the female plant
Stalk can photosynthesize, but soon turns brown, lives off the parent plant (sound
familiar??)
Capsule ripens, the lid or operculum opens up, releases the spores
Spores germinate into tiny green threads called protonema (pl. = protonemata)
Mosses can also grow little vegetative buds called gemmae, that break off and grow into
a new plant
Peat bogs cover 1% of the Earths land surface, area = half the United States !!
Peat bogs are very acidic, pH = 4 or lower, most acidic natural environment
Simplest bodies of any green plant, looks like a flat scaly leaf with prominent lobes
Lobes suggested the shape of a liver, hence hepato - phyta = Greek for liver plant, liver
- wort from Anglo Saxon wyrt = herb
During the Middle Ages, because of its resemblance to the human liver, liverworts were
used to treat liver diseases
Doctrine of Signatures claimed that the creator has intentionally created plants to look
like the parts of the body they could be used to cure!
Mandrake root was a heal-all because it looked like an entire human body
Life cycle similar to mosses - gametophyte is dominant stage (the leafy green plant)
Sperm swims to the egg, zygote develops into tiny diploid sporophyte that remains
attached to the umbrella
When the elaters dry out, they twist and jerk around, scatter the spores
Asexual reproduction by gemmae cups, little cups with tiny liverwort inside, dispersed by
drop of water
Symbiotic with cyanobacteria Nostoc and Anabaena, which fix nitrogen for the hornwort