Bryophytes

Bryophytes are non vascular land plants. They include the Mosses, Liverworts and Hornwarts. Because of their lack of a vascular system they often prefer to live in moist locations where water can be absorbed through their leaves.

Bryophytes produce no flowers or seeds, instead reproducing by either division or spores.

Club Mosses are not a moss, or a bryophyte.

{Website of the British Bryological Society }

Lifecycle

When a spore lands in a suitable location it produces an algae like structure called a protonema.

From this protonema the leafy plant, called a gametophyte, grows. There are distinct male and femaale gametophyte.

The water carries the sperm from the male plant to the female. The female plant then produces a sporophyte which then spreads spores, usually on the wind, to form the next generation of moss plants.

{link to Details of the byophyte lifecycle }

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