The Life History of a Fern
Now let’s take a look at the lifehistory of a plant. It is a little trickier than humans because there is an extra generation!
This is a diagrammatic representation of a fern. The fern, like a human, is a diploid organism; it has two sets of chormosomes.You are probably familiar with this organism.
On the underside of the leaf (frond) you may find clusters of spores (represented by little dots).
Spores are produced by meiosis and shed into the environment.
If a spore lands in a favourable habitat it will grow into a very small organism
(a separate generation from the leafy fern).
The new generation is called the gametophyte because it produces gametes
(eggs and sperm). What do you think the name of the leafy, spore-producing generation is?
The spore-producing generation is called the sporophyte.
The eggs and sperm fuse to form the zygote. What is the ploidy
(haploid or diploid) of the zygote?
The zygote is diploid; it gets one set of chromosomes from the egg
and another set from the sperm.
The zygote develops into an embryo which will ultimately develop
into a new sporophyte.