Question

Higher plants such as trees reproduce by seeds while lower plants such as mosses and ferns reproduce by spores. What is the basic difference between a spore and a seed?

• A. Spores are easily destroyed by animals
• B. Spores lack a food reserve
• C. Spores take a much longer time to germinate
• D. Spores need great nutrition from the parent plant to develop

Answer 1

The correct option is B Spores lack a food reserve

Spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, fungi and protozoa. They place a role in germination. They lack food reserve since they undergo different cellular division. Bacterial spores are not part of a sexual cycle but are resistant structures used for survival under unfavourable conditions. Myxozoan spores release amoebulae into their hosts for parasitic infection, but also reproduce within the hosts through the pairing of two nuclei within the plasmodium, which develops from the amoebula. The spores of seed plants, however, are produced internally and the megaspores, formed within the ovules and the microspores are involved in the formation of more complex structures that form the dispersal units, the seeds and pollen grains.

So the correct option is 'spores lack a food reserve'.