noun
definition
The larger spore of a heterosporous plant, typically producing a female gametophyte
Examples of megaspores in a Sentence
These, as in Gymnosperms, are of two kinds, microspores or pollen-grains, borne in the stamens (or microsporophylls) and megaspores, in which the egg-cell is developed, contained in the ovule, which is borne enclosed in the carpel (or megasporophyll).
It has been shown by Lawson that in Sequoia sempervirens (Annals of Botany, 1904) and by other workers in the genera that several megaspores may attain a fairly large size in one prothallus.
The spores produced in each sporangium vary from very many to a single one in the case of some heterosporous forms. These latter bear spores of two kinds, microspores and megaspores, in separate sporangia.
Some Calamites were heterosporous, sporangia with microspores and megaspores being found in the same cone.
In the megasporangium, on the other hand, the four megaspores, which arise from a single mother-cell, are nourished at the expense of the other sporogenous cells and of the tapetum.
The microspores are united by means of hardened protoplasm into one or more masses, while the solitary megaspores have a more or less complicated episporium.
It has recently been stated, however, that the supposed Algae are in reality the megaspores of Vascular Cryptogams. Scarcely anything is known of Palaeozoic Florideae; Solenopora, ranging from the Ordovician to the Jurassic, resembles, in the structure of its thallus, with definite zones of growth, Corallinaceae such as Lithothamnion, and may probably be of the same nature.
The megaspores, of which there are many in the megasporangium, have a diameter about three times that of the microspores.
The fructification consists of long, lax spikes, with whorled sporophylls; indications of megaspores have been detected in the sporangia.
The spores of this genus are curiously winged, and intermediate in size between the microspores and megaspores of Lepidostrobus; the question of homospory or heterospory is not yet decided.
In Selaginellites Suissei there was a definite strobilus bearing both microand megasporangia; in each of the latter from 16 to 24 megaspores were contained; in Selaginellites primaevus, however, the number of megaspores was only 4, and the resemblance to a recent Selaginella was thus complete.
Nathorst has recently described a new type of lycopodiaceous cone, Lycostrobus Scotti, from Rhaetic rocks of Scania, from which he obtained both megaspores and microspores.