How does moss go to seed?
A marigold plant bears sunny colored flowers that soon fade away. The petals fall and in their places come tufts of seeds for more marigolds. The simple mosses have no eye catching flowers, but they have a far more complicated way of going to seed than the razzle dazzle marigolds. The mosses spread like carpets on the moist ground and cling like snug jackets to shady tree trunks. But they have no true plant roots to anchor them to the spot. Their delicate foliage is anchored by rootlets_ called rhizoids. New plants can grow from spreading foliage, or a moss plant may go to seed in a very special way of its own. A thriving moss plant may grow an extra long tuft of foliage that bends to touch the ground where it develops a new set of rhizoids. It also sprouts two types of leafy tufts, one male and one female. The male branch is called the antheridium and is topped with a small package of sperm cells. The female branch is the archegonium, and at the top of the leafy tuft is an egg cell. O
