PLANTS AND SPERM?

Ever wondered what cool sciencey stuff they are teaching undergraduates at the University of Queensland?

 Every school day I will post my newly learned cool fact... Enjoy 

11/03/2013

BIOLOGY

PLANTS AND SPERM

I guess in this day and age it is common knowledge that male animals produce sperm and female animals produce eggs.

But what I bet a lot of you didn’t know was that there are indeed male and female plants and they also produce sperm and eggs.

Even moss, one of the simplest and smallest of the plants on earth produce billions of sperm per ace of forest they cover.

Moss is an interesting case too.

It was one of the earliest plants to evolve from algae and has an interesting reproduction cycle.

Animals produce sperm in an aqueous solution for delivery to the female egg,

Moss doesn’t. It produces raw sperm.

It needs a coating of water between the male plants to the female plants for the sperm to swim between. This is why moss will only grow in a very moist environment. Its reproduction cycle is basically aquatic.

Moss will continue to live on a dry rock, but it won’t be able to spread.

As soon as moisture hits such a dried out moss plant, it is open season and all sexual activity springs into life.

Just remember as you trek through the forest, the damp rock faces are probably seething with moss sperm.