Chapter 5

Seed plants: Angiosperms

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Angiosperms
• Flowering plants are called angiosperms.
• This is derived from two Greek words: angeio meaning
vessel and sperma meaning seed.
• The vessel is the carpel which is like an enrolled leaf
with seeds along its margins.
• Many flowers have pistils composed of either a single
carpel or two more united carpels.
• A seed develops from an ovule within a carpel and is
part of an ovary that becomes a fruit.
Flowering plants
• These plants vary greatly in size, shape, texture, form,
and longevity.
• A few flowering plants are parasitic.
• Dodders which occasionally cause serious crop
losses as they twine about their hosts, by means of
haustoria, intercept food and water in the host
xylem and phloem.
• Mistletoes produce some chlorophyll and depend
only partially on their hosts for food.
• The vast majority of flowering plants produce their
food independently through photosynthesis.
 Development of Gametophytes
• While the flower is developing in the bud, a diploid megasporocyte cell
differentiates from all the other cells in the ovule.
• This megasporocyte undergoes meiosis, producing four haploid
megaspores.
• After they are produced, three of these megaspores degenerate and
disappear, but the nucleus of the fourth undergoes mitosis, and the cell
enlarges.
• While the cell is growing larger, its two haploid nuclei divide once more.
• The resulting four nuclei then divide yet another time.
• Consequently, eight haploid nuclei in all are produced.
• By the time these three successive mitotic divisions have been completed,
the cell has grown to many times its original volume.
• At the same time, two outer layers of cells of the ovule differentiate.
• These layers, called integuments, later become the seed coat of the seed.
• As they develop, they leave a pore, or gap, called the micropyle, at one
end.
Development of Gametophytes
• There are eight haploid nuclei in two groups, four nuclei toward
each end of the large cell.
• One nucleus from each group then migrates toward the middle of
the cell.
• These two central cell nuclei may become a binucleate cell, or they
may fuse together, forming a single diploid nucleus.
• Cell walls also form around the remaining nuclei.
• In the group closest to the micropyle, one of the cells functions as
the female gamete, or egg.
• The other two cells are called synergids, either is destroyed or
degenerate during or after events that occur later.
• At the other end, the remaining three cells, called antipodals, have
no apparent function, and later they also degenerate.
• The large sac, usually containing eight nuclei in seven cells,
constitutes the female gametophyte, formerly known as the
embryo sac.
 Development of Gametophytes
• Usually while the mega gametophyte is developing, a parallel process
that leads to the formation of male gametophytes takes place in the
anthers.
• As an anther develops, four patches of tissue differentiate from the
main mass of cells.
• These patches of tissue contain many diploid microsporocyte cells,
each of which undergoes meiosis, producing a quartet of
microspores.
• Four chambers of cavities (pollen sacs) lined with nutritive tapetal
cells are visible in an anther cross section by the time the microspores
have been produced.
• As the anther matures, the walls between adjacent pairs of chambers
break down so that only two larger sacs remain.
• After meiosis, the haploid microspores in the pollen sacs undergo
several changes more or less simultaneously, the processes usually
taking from a day or two to a couple of weeks.
 Development of Gametophytes
• The following three changes are the most important:
• the nucleus in each microspore divides once by
mitosis
• the members of each quartet of microspores
separate from one another
• A two-layered wall, whose outer layer is often finely
sculptured, develops around each microspore.
• When these events are complete, the microspores have
become pollen grains.
• The outer layer of the pollen grain wall, called the exine,
which is often sculptured, contains chemicals that may
later react with other chemicals in the stigma of a flower.
 Development of Gametophytes
• The cytoplasm of pollen grains is often rich in vitamins, and
pollen is often collected and sold in health-food stores as a food
supplement.
• The sculpturing of pollen grain exine of various species is also
distinctive enough to allow identification to family, genus and
even species in some instances.
• Many pollen grains have three boat-shaped or pore-like thin
areas (apertures) in the wall, but the number of apertures may
range from one to many.
• One of the pollen grain’s two nuclei, the generative nucleus,
will later divide, producing two nuclei that become surrounded
by a plasma membrane and function as sperm cells.
• The sperms of angiosperms do not have flagella.
• The remaining vegetative nucleus is involved in events that take
place after the pollen grain has left the anther.
 Pollination
• Pollination is simply the transfer of pollen grains from an
anther to a stigma.
• Fertilization involves the union of egg and sperm, and it may
not occur until days or weeks or months after pollination has
taken place, or it may not follow pollination at all.
• Most pollination is brought about by insects or wind, but in
many species, water, birds, bats, other mammals, and gravity
act as agents of pollinators.
• The adaptation between the flower and its pollinators can be
intricate and precise and may even in certain instances involve
force, chemicals, or sexual enticement.
• In some instances, self-pollination may occur, with the pollen
grains geminating on the stigma of the same flower in which
they were produced.
 Fertilization and Development of
the Seed
• After pollination, with the notable exception of a number
of crop plants, further development of the male
gametophyte may not take place unless the pollen grain is.
• from a different plant of the same species or
• from a variety different from that of the flower
receiving it
• Under suitable conditions, the dense cytoplasm of the
pollen grain absorbs fluids from the stigma and bulges out
through one of the apertures in the form of a tube.
• This pollen tube then grows down between the cells of the
stigma and style until it reaches the micropyle of the ovule.
• The pollen tube’s journey may last less than 24 hours and
usually does not take more than 2 days, although there are
a few plants in which growth takes over a year.
Fertilization and Development of
the Seed
• As the tube grows, most of the contents of the pollen
grain are discharged into it.
• The vegetative nucleus stays at the tip, while the
generative nucleus lags behind and divides by mitosis,
usually in the tube, producing two nuclei that become
sperm cells; no flagella develop.
• Sometimes, the generative nucleus divides before the
pollen tube has formed.
• The germinated pollen grain with its vegetative nucleus
and two sperms constitutes the mature male
gametophyte.
Fertilization and Development of
the Seed
• When the pollen tube reaches the micropyle, it continues on to the
female gametophyte, which it enters, destroying a now
degenerating synergid in the process; it then either bursts of forms
a pore, discharging its contents.
• Next, an event unique to angiosperms called double fertilization
takes place.
• One sperm migrates from the synergid to the egg, losing most of its
protoplasm along the way.
• The sperm cell nucleus then unites with the egg nucleus, forming a
zygote.
• The other sperm cell also migrates from the synergid, and, upon
reaching the central cell nuclei, unites with them, producing a 3N
endosperm nucleus.
• The endosperm nucleus becomes exceptionally active and divides
repeatedly by mitosis, with cell cycles being completed every few
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hours, usually without formation of cell walls.

Seed formation
Flower morphology
Trends of Specialization and
Classification in Flowering Plants
• Although today there still are many plants whose flowers have
primitive features, various specializations and modifications
have occurred since flowers first appeared.
• Flower parts have become fewer and definite in number.
• Some parts have fused, and spiral arrangements have been
compressed to whorls.
• The first pistil is believed to have been formed form a leaf-like
structure with ovules along its margins.
• The edges of the blade called a carpel, apparently rolled inward
and fused together.
• In due course, the separate carpels of primitive flowers fused
together, forming the common compound pistil consisting of
several carpels, which is found in many of today’s angiosperms.
 Trends of Specialization and
Classification in Flowering Plants
• In advanced flowers, the receptacle or other
flower parts have fused to the ovary and grown
up around it, so that the calyx and the corolla
appear to be attached at the top of the ovary.
• When the ovary is embedded in the receptacle
and other parts, it is said to be an inferior ovary.
• A more primitive superior ovary is produced on
top of the receptacle with the other flower
parts attached around its base.
• Flowers also tended to become bilaterally
symmetrical or irregular as in the sweet pea.
Trends of Specialization and
Classification in Flowering Plants
• If a flower has a calyx, corolla, stamens, and
a pistil it is complete.
• If the corolla or other flower parts are
missing, the flower is incomplete.
• If both stamens and a pistil are present it is
said to be perfect, regardless of whether or
not it also happens to be complete or
incomplete.
• Flowers with either stamens or a pistil, but
not both are imperfect flowers.
Trends of Specialization and
Classification in Flowering Plants
• When both male and female imperfect
flowers occur on the same plant the
species is monoecious.
• If a plant bears only male flowers and
other plants of the same species bear only
female flowers, the species is said to be
dioecious.
• In both the dicots and the monocots,
evolutionary specialization has involved
reduction and fusion of parts and a shifting
of the ovary from a superior to an inferior
position.