Not every plant grows from a seed. Some plants, like ferns and mosses, grow from spores. Other plants use asexual vegetative reproduction and grow new plants from rhizomes or tubers. We can also use techniques like grafting or take cuttings to make new plants.
Plants that reproduce from spores
Ferns are very common in New Zealand. If you turn over a fern frond (leaf), you might see some unusual structures called sporangia. The sporangia produce very tiny spores. Spores are different to seeds. They do not contain plant embryos or food stores. When the sporangia break open, the spores are released and dispersed by the wind. If the spore lands in a suitable environment, it can grow into a tiny plant called a gametophyte.
The gametophyte looks like a little, thin green plate. It does not have roots, stems or leaves. The gametophyte is a short-lived plant that has both male and female reproductive organs. These produce male and female gametes that combine in fertilisation to produce an embryo. Once fertilisation takes place, a new fern plant starts to grow into the plant we recognise as a fern. Ferns are the only land plant that has these two separate independent living stages.
Ferns are not the only plants to reproduce from spores. Mosses, liverworts and green algae also have spores.
Plants that reproduce from asexual vegetative reproduction
New plants are sometimes made by asexual vegetative reproduction. These new plants have exactly the same genes as the parent. Some plants – like strawberries – have stems called stolons that grow out sideways above the soil, and new plants grow up along them. Other plants send out underground stems called rhizomes, which form new plants at a distance from the parent. Tubers (for example, potatoes) and bulbs (for example, onions) are also special underground structures that can grow into new plants.
People also make new plants using asexual reproduction. Gardeners grow plants from cuttings. They do this by snipping a young shoot off a plant, dipping it in rooting hormone and placing the cutting in a mixture of sand and potting mix. The cutting soon grows roots and can be transferred outdoors.
Grafting
Grafting and budding are two ways to make new plants. This video, Grafting and budding, demonstrates these two techniques.
Fruit tree breeders often use grafting to make new plants. Grafting allows them to have large plantings of the same fruit variety with exactly the same genetic material. Grafting uses the rootstock of a plant that grows well in the soil and joins it to the plant the breeder wishes to produce.
Nature of science
Although we think of science as always advancing at a steady pace, techniques like cutting and grafting have been around for thousands of years. Science has helped us understand how these techniques work and improve them with advances like rooting hormones and breeding new plant cultivars.
Activity idea
In this video clip, Parts of a fern, Dr Patrick Brownsey from Te Papa Museum shows us the different parts of a fern. As the language used may be too complex for younger students, consider muting the audio and providing your own simpler narration.
The activity Growing new plants without seeds uses spores, bulbils, rhizomes, stolons, tubers or cuttings to grow new plants.
FAQs
Numerous seedless plants reproduce asexually through the vegetative, budding, cutting, fragmentation, layering, and micropropagation methods. As an illustration, mosses, hornworts, and liverworts.
How do plants reproduce without seeds answer? ›
Hence, plants reproduce without seeds through methods such as budding, vegetative propagation and fragmentation. Q. Vegetative reproduction is a type of asexual reproduction in which plants reproduce through structures other than flowers and seeds.
Which of the following is a way for plants to reproduce without seeds? ›
Vegetative propagation does not need seeds or spores. Instead, offspring grow from a part of the parent plant. In different plants, vegetative propagation happens in different ways.
What are 2 types of plants that reproduce without seeds? ›
Some plants don't produce flowers and seeds. Plants such as ferns and mosses are called nonflowering plants and produce spores instead of seeds. There is also another group called the Fungi, that include mushrooms, and these also reproduce by spores.
How can seedless plants reproduce? ›
Seedless plants can reproduce asexually or sexually. Some seedless plants, like hornworts and liverworts, can reproduce asexually through fragmentation. When a small fragment of the plant is broken off, it can form a new plant.
What are plants without seeds called? ›
The plants without seeds and flowers are called cryptogams or non-flowering plants. Cryptogams include algae, bryophytes and pteridophytes that do not produce seeds and flowers. Cryptogams reproduce through the formation of spores.
How are plants grown without seeds? ›
Not every plant grows from a seed. Some plants, like ferns and mosses, grow from spores. Other plants use asexual vegetative reproduction and grow new plants from rhizomes or tubers. We can also use techniques like grafting or take cuttings to make new plants.
How do trees reproduce without seeds? ›
Cuttings are just stems that are taken from a tree and then planted in the soil. With lots of loving care, the stems develop roots and can grow into an adult tree. This method of tree care is referred to as asexual reproduction, so the tree is actually just a clone of the original tree.
How to grow a banana tree without seeds? ›
In fact, bananas are propagated through suckers or pups. They grow from the base of the mother plant. These pups are essentially small clones of the mother plant. So it is easy to grow bananas without the need for seeds.
What are 3 plants that reproduce by seeds? ›
Jamun, banyan, apple, coconut and neem are some of the plants that reproduce by means of seeds. Q. Plants which has lost their capacity to produce seeds, reproduce by: Q.
While all species of land plants are capable of sexual reproduction, many can also reproduce asexually. Some plants can send out runners that form new plants or propagate multiple bulbs from the parent. They are genetically identical copies of the parent.
What is it called when a plant produces seeds without fertilization? ›
Apomixis is the development of seed without fertilization. Apomixis is a type of asexual reproduction which mimics sexual reproduction.
What are the five fruits without seeds? ›
Bananas, figs, coconut, grapes, and pineapple are the five fruits that have no seeds. Seedless fruits are the ones that do not need seeds to grow. They also do not contain any seeds or at least, mature seeds. Other examples of seedless fruits include oranges, limes, lemons, watermelons, etc.
How do you grow fruit without seeds? ›
Lacking seeds, and thus the capacity to propagate via the fruit, the plants are generally propagated vegetatively from cuttings, by grafting, or in the case of bananas, from "pups" (offsets). In such cases, the resulting plants are genetically identical clones. By contrast, seedless watermelons are grown from seeds.
How did bananas become seedless? ›
Although all wild bananas naturally make seeds, those seeds make them undesirable as far as humans are concerned. But occasionally the banana plant produces a mutant, a genetic mistake containing three copies of all chromosomes, which renders the new plant unable to produce viable seeds.
How does a plant reproduce? ›
Pollination – this happens when a male pollen grain, released from a male anther, meets the female part of a flower, the stigma. The grain germinates and travels down from the stigma into the plant's ovary, within or just behind the flower.
How do you grow seedless plants? ›
Since they can't be planted, they have to be specially cultivated through different scientific processes. For example, to make seedless grapes, new plants are made from existing plants. Adult grape plant stems are sliced diagonally and cut into sections. The cut ends are then dipped into a rooting hormone and planted.
What is an example of a seedless plant? ›
The seedless vascular plants include club mosses, which are the most primitive; whisk ferns, which lost leaves and roots by reductive evolution; and horsetails and ferns. Ferns are the most advanced group of seedless vascular plants.
