Land plant spores that develop into male gametophytes; structures that are part of the alternation of generations in many seedless vascular cryptogams, all gymnosperms and all angiosperms;haploid, are produced from diploid microsporocytes by meiosis
11 statements · 27% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations
8 identifiers linking microspore across the web's reference databases
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Microspores are land plant spores that develop into male gametophytes, whereas megaspores develop into female gametophytes. The male gametophyte gives rise to sperm cells, which are used for fertilization of an egg cell to form a zygote. Megaspores are structures that are part of the alternation of generations in many seedless vascular cryptogams, all gymnosperms and all angiosperms. Plants with heterosporous life cycles using microspores and megaspores arose independently in several plant groups during the Devonian period. Microspores are haploid, and are produced from diploid microsporocytes by meiosis.