Columella (botany)
Columella (in plants) is an axis of sterile tissue which passes through the center of the spore-case of mosses. In fungi it refers to a centrally vacuolated part of a hypha, bearing spores In biology, a 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, .... The word finds analogous usage in myxomycetes. The term columella is also used to refer to story 1 to story 4 (S1 – S4) cells in the root cap, located apically of the quiescent centre. References Plant anatomy {{Botany-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sporangium
A sporangium (; from Late Latin, ) is an enclosure in which spores are formed. It can be composed of a single cell or can be multicellular. Virtually all plants, fungi, and many other lineages form sporangia at some point in their life cycle. Sporangia can produce spores by mitosis, but in nearly all land plants and many fungi, sporangia are the site of meiosis and produce genetically distinct haploid spores. Fungi In some phyla of fungi, the sporangium plays a role in asexual reproduction, and may play an indirect role in sexual reproduction. The sporangium forms on the sporangiophore and contains haploid nuclei and cytoplasm. Spores are formed in the sporangiophore by encasing each haploid nucleus and cytoplasm in a tough outer membrane. During asexual reproduction, these spores are dispersed via wind and germinate into haploid hyphae. Although sexual reproduction in fungi varies between phyla, for some fungi the sporangium plays an indirect role in sexual reprod ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moss
Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hornworts. Mosses typically form dense green clumps or mats, often in damp or shady locations. The individual plants are usually composed of simple leaves that are generally only one cell thick, attached to a stem that may be branched or unbranched and has only a limited role in conducting water and nutrients. Although some species have conducting tissues, these are generally poorly developed and structurally different from similar tissue found in vascular plants. Mosses do not have seeds and after fertilisation develop sporophytes with unbranched stalks topped with single capsules containing spores. They are typically tall, though some species are much larger. ''Dawsonia'', the tallest moss in the world, can grow to in height. There are a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fungi
A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from the other eukaryotic kingdoms, which by one traditional classification include Plantae, Animalia, Protozoa, and Chromista. A characteristic that places fungi in a different kingdom from plants, bacteria, and some protists is chitin in their cell walls. Fungi, like animals, are heterotrophs; they acquire their food by absorbing dissolved molecules, typically by secreting digestive enzymes into their environment. Fungi do not photosynthesize. Growth is their means of mobility, except for spores (a few of which are flagellated), which may travel through the air or water. Fungi are the principal decomposers in ecological systems. These and other differences place fungi in a single group of related organisms, named the ''Eumycota'' (''t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hypha
A hypha (; ) is a long, branching, filamentous structure of a fungus, oomycete, or actinobacterium. In most fungi, hyphae are the main mode of vegetative growth, and are collectively called a mycelium. Structure A hypha consists of one or more cells surrounded by a tubular cell wall. In most fungi, hyphae are divided into cells by internal cross-walls called "septa" (singular septum). Septa are usually perforated by pores large enough for ribosomes, mitochondria, and sometimes nuclei to flow between cells. The major structural polymer in fungal cell walls is typically chitin, in contrast to plants and oomycetes that have cellulosic cell walls. Some fungi have aseptate hyphae, meaning their hyphae are not partitioned by septa. Hyphae have an average diameter of 4–6 µm. Growth Hyphae grow at their tips. During tip growth, cell walls are extended by the external assembly and polymerization of cell wall components, and the internal production of new cell membrane. The S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spore
In biology, a 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. Bacterial spores are not part of a sexual cycle, but are resistant structures used for survival under unfavourable conditions. Myxozoan spores release amoeboid infectious germs ("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. In plants, spores are usually haploid and unicellular and are produced by meiosis in the sporangium of a diploid sporophyte. Under favourable conditions the spore can develop into a new organism using mitotic division, producing a multicellular gametophyte, which eventually goes on to produce gametes. Two gametes fuse to form a zygote which develops into a new s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Myxogastria
Myxogastria/Myxogastrea (myxogastrids, International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, ICZN) or Myxomycetes (International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, ICN), is a Class (biology), class of slime molds that contains 5 order (biology), orders, 14 family (biology), families, 62 genera, and 888 species. They are colloquially known as the ''plasmodial'' or ''acellular'' slime moulds. All species pass through several, very different morphology (biology), morphologic phases, such as microscopic individual cells, slimy amorphous organisms visible with the naked eye and conspicuously shaped fruit body, fruit bodies. Although they are monocellular, they can reach immense widths and weights: in extreme cases they can be up to across and weigh up to . The class Myxogastria is distributed worldwide, but it is more common in temperate regions where it has a higher biodiversity than in polar regions, the subtropics or tropics. They are mainly found in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Root Cap
The root cap is a type of tissue at the tip of a plant root. It is also called calyptra. Root caps contain statocytes which are involved in gravity perception in plants. If the cap is carefully removed the root will grow randomly. The root cap protects the growing tip in plants. It secretes mucilage Mucilage is a thick, gluey substance produced by nearly all plants and some microorganisms. These microorganisms include protists which use it for their locomotion. The direction of their movement is always opposite to that of the secretion of m ... to ease the movement of the root through soil, and may also be involved in communication with the soil microbiota. The purpose of the root cap is to enable downward growth of the root, with the root cap covering the sensitive tissue in the root. Also, the root cap enables geoperception or gravitropism. This allows the plant to grow downwards (with gravity) or upwards (against gravity). The root cap is absent in some parasitic plants ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Quiescent Centre
The quiescent centre is a group of cells, up to 1,000 in number, in the form of a hemisphere, with the flat face toward the root tip of vascular plants. It is a region in the apical meristem of a root where cell division proceeds very slowly or not at all, but the cells are capable of resuming meristematic activity when the tissue surrounding them is damaged. Cells of root apical meristems do not all divide at the same rate. Determinations of relative rates of DNA synthesis show that primary roots of '' Zea'', ''Vicia'' and ''Allium'' have quiescent centres to the meristems, in which the cells divide rarely or never in the course of normal root growth (Clowes, 1958). Such a quiescent centre includes the cells at the apices of the histogens of both stele and cortex. Its presence can be deduced from the anatomy of the apex in ''Zea'' (Clowes, 1958), but not in the other species which lack discrete histogens. History In 1953, during the course of analysing the organization and func ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |