In this topic you will learn about plants that make spores.

Mosses and their close relatives, the liverworts, are nonvascular plants. They don't have the long tubelike structures that vascular plants have, but their more distant relatives—club mosses, spike mosses, horsetails, and ferns—do.

Mosses and liverworts cling to damp soil, sheltered rocks, and the shady side of trees. They are tiny plants. Mosses and liverworts don't have roots. They stay anchored in one place because they have rhizoids. A rhizoid is a hairlike fiber that anchors a moss to the soil and takes in water from the soil.

Mosses and liverworts are seedless plants. They grow from spores. A spore is a cell in seedless plants that grows into a new organism. The fern plant also forms spores. The leaves of ferns are called fronds. They grow above the ground from an underground stem called a rhizome.

Both mosses and ferns have two separate stages to their life cycles. Both have a stage when they produce spores. This stage is called asexual reproduction. During asexual reproduction, the production of a new organism comes from only one cell.

Moss spores grow into leafy moss plants that have male branches and female branches. Male branches produce sperm—the male sex cells. Female branches produce eggs—female sex cells. When a male sex cell meets a female sex cell, the two may join together. When this happens, the egg is fertilized. This stage is called sexual reproduction.

Sexual reproduction refers to the production of a new organism from a female sex cell and a male sex cell. This process of going from sexual reproduction to asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction again is called alternation of generations.

Ferns also reproduce by alternation of generations. Fern plants produce spore cases on the undersides of their fronds. Spores landing in shady, moist soil are most likely to grow.

Mosses were among the first plants to live on land. Today mosses are often the first plants to return to an area where plant life has been destroyed. Mosses help break down rocks into soil. Mosses also soak up water during rain showers and keep the soil moist. Mosses also hold onto the soil, making it easier for other plants to survive in an area.