56 



PLANTS AND MAN 



The club-shaped male sex organs, or antheridia, are packed 

 with hundreds of minute coiled sperm cells; the flask-shaped 

 female organs, or archegonia, have swollen bases each of which 

 contains a single &^% cell (fig. 29). After a rain, or any accumula- 

 tion of moisture on the moss, the sperms are released and swim 



SPORE CASE 



ASEXUAL PLANT 



'.'.['SPORES 



GERMINATING 

 SPORE 



Fig. 30. — The life history of a moss plant. 



to the tip of the archegonium. There the sperm finds its way 

 through the passageway in the neck of the female sex organ, 

 eventually reaching the ^g^ and uniting with it. The fertilized 

 ^^g, remaining in place at the tip of the moss plant, now begins 

 growing into a new generation. But this new plant is entirely 

 different in appearance from the parent. It is leafless and brown 



