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Capricorn Coast Plants
Moss, Fungi and Lichen
Mosses and Liverworts page 1
Moss and Liverworts; Page 1 Page 2 Page 3    
Mosses and Liverworts are small, soft plants that are typically 1–10 cm (0.4-4 in) tall, though some species are much larger, commonly growing closely together in clumps or mats in damp and shady locations. Wherever they occur, they require moisture to survive because of the small size and thinness of tissues, lack of cuticle (waxy covering to prevent water loss), and the need for liquid water to complete fertilisation. They belong to the bryophytes, or non-vascular plants and have no true roots, stems, or leaves.
       
   
A typical moss
 
A typical Liverwort
 
       
Reproduction in Bryophytes  
Bryophytes have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, i.e. the plant's cells are haploid for most of its life cycle. Sporophytes (i.e. the diploid body) are short-lived and dependent on the gametophyte. This is in contrast to the pattern exhibited by most "higher" plants and by most animals. In seed plants, for example, the pollen and the ovule represent the haploid generation, whilst the diploid generation is the familiar flowering plant.
In Bryophytes the female cells remain attached to the stems while sperm are free to swim through the moisture towards the eggs and fertilise them, when fertilised the egg germinates while still attached to the parent plant and produces the asexual generation, a capsule full of spores on a long thin stem called a Sporophyte.When this is mature it splits and the spores are distributed by the wind to grow into other moss plants. The advantage of this development was that the parent plant could protect the spores from desiccation if there was insufficient moisture for their germination, this was an important evolutionary step in the successful plant colonisation of the land
 
 
       
   
Moss Sporophytes
 
   
       
       
       
       
       
       
   
Glossary
  
Haploid; A cell that contains only one set of chromosomes, human egg and sperm cells are haploid.
 
   
Diploid; A cell that contains two sets of chromosomes, most human cells are diploid.
  
   
Zygote; a diploid cell that is the result of fertilisation, in humans this occurs at conception and gives the subsequent foetus one set of chromosomes from each parent.
 
   
   
   
   
List of local flora, common names
native plant guides
page 1 miscellaneous
page 2 miscellaneous
page 3 foreshore
page 4 mangroves
page 5 miscellaneous
page 6 wet forest
page 7 flowering gound plants