Plant Life Cycles

Plants have cycles that are very different from ours. Humans are diploid individuals--that is, each of us have two sets of chromosomes, one from each parent. Gametes are the only haploid stage in the human life cycle. Plants have an alternation of generations: the diploid and haploid stages are distinct, multicellular bodies. The haploid generation of a plant produces gametes and is called the gametophyte. The diploid generation produces spores and is called the sporophyte. In a plant's life cycle, these two generations alternate in producing each other. In mosses, as in all nonvascular plants, the gametophytes is the larger, more obvious stage of the life cycle. Ferns, like most plants, have a life cycle dominated by the sporophyte, Today about 95% of all plants, including all seeds plants, have a dominant sporophyte in their life cycle. The life cycles of all plants follow a pattern. -Biology book pg. 346

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