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| Bryophytes, which include the mosses, liverworts, and hornworts, frequently make a soft-looking green covering on damp banks, trees, and logs that are shaded for at least part of the day. Water, at least in the form of dew or rain, is essential for the reproduction of all bryophytes. These plants exhibit an alternation of generations more conspicuously than most other organisms. In mosses, the leafy part of the plant is the gametophyte generation, which produces gametes. Periodically, the sporophyte generation, which produces spores, emerges from the gametophyte tip, usually in the form of a tiny capped urn on the end of a slender stalk. (top left photo) | |
| Liverworts differ from mosses in several ways and are considered less complex than mosses. They develop their leafy gametophyte stage almost directly from spores, and they have distinct top and bottom surfaces, with root-like rhizoids on the lower surface. The one-celled rhizoids resemble tiny roots and function in anchoring the plant. All liverworts have prostrate as opposed to an upright growth habit. Male and female organs are produced on separate gametophytes, with both male and female reproductive structures rising from the thallus on umbrella-like stalks called gametophores. The female structure is spoked whereas the male structure is a disc with scalloped edges. |
 Liverwort - Female Gametangia Photo by: Andrew G. Seymour |
 Liverwort - Gemma cups |
With some of the more complicated liverworts, like the ones commonly found in flowerpots in greenhouses, on moist bricks in gardens and on badly drained soils, you can see small cups on the leaves. These cups are referred to as gemma cups and have small oval pieces of tissue, called gemma, which can be spread by rain drops and become new plants. |
| By far, the most important bryophyte is peat moss. It is used as a fuel source, a soil conditioner and in the curing of malt for Scotch whisky. Due to its naturally high acidity, it has antibacterial and antifungal properties. Some other brytophytes, along with lichens, are important as initial colonizers in areas where the habitat has been disturbed, such as after volcanic eruptions. | |