Bryophytes

=**Bryophytes**=
 * **Bryophytes are non-vascular plants, meaning that hey do not have vascular tissue (tissue that carries out water and nutrients through a plant).**
 * **These include mosses, liverworts, and hornworts.**




 * **They have to be near water to be able to receive it.**
 * **The only way that sperm cell can reach them is through water.**

**Mosses**

 * **Mosses are the most common type of bryophytes.**
 * **They are located near large amounts of water such as bogs or rain forests.**
 * **They grow condense, though they have a thin stalk called the sporophyte area.**
 * **A stem like and leaf like structure makes up the gametophyte (the green area which we usually see).**
 * **A rhizoid (long thin cells that anchor a moss to the ground) acts like a root.**



**Liverworts**

 * **Liverworts have a leaf like structure and an umbrella like stem.**
 * **Liverworts reproduce asexually with Gemmae. The Gemmae uses mitosis to split and create a new liverwort.**

**Hornworts**

 * **Hornworts look like liverworts except that their sporophyte (stem) look like small green horns.**
 * **They live in soil that is wet year round.**

**Main Stages of Bryophytes**

 * **The main recognizable stage is the gametophyte stage, in which they carry out mos of their photosynthesis.**
 * **This is when it gains the most nutrients.**

**Life Cycle of Mosses**

 * **The first stage of mosses' life cycle is when it lands in a wet area and it starts forming a mass called potonema, which are green filaments.**
 * **As it grows it develops rhizoids on the ground and gametophytes that develop from the base upwards.**
 * **Then, gametes are developed at the top of gametophytes.**
 * **The sperm is formed at the antheridia (males) and the egg is produced in the archegonia (females).**
 * **Some mosses are hermaphrodites, some are not.**
 * **When the sperm is released and it reaches the egg, it produces a zygote.**
 * **The zygote is the beginning of the sporophyte stage in which the sporophyte depends on the gametophyte for nutrients.**
 * **Eventually the zygote breaks and releases seeds that will give birth to a new moss.**


 * Bryophytes Video **