• Seed plants have had an enormous impact

on human society.
• - Starting about 13,000 years ago, humans
began to domesticate wheat, maize (corn),
bananas, and other wild seed plants.
• - This practice emerged separately in various
regions of the world, including the Near East,
East Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
• - A well–preserved squash seed was found in
a cave in Mexico and dates from between
8,000 and 10,000 years ago.
• - This seed differs from wild squash seeds,
suggesting that squash was being cultivated
by that time.
• In addition to seeds, the following
characteristics (terrestrial adaptations)
are common to all seed plants:
• - reduced gametophytes,
• - heterospory,
• - ovules, and
• - pollen.
• - (Seedless plants lack these
adaptations, except for a few species
that exhibit heterospory)
• Advantages of Reduced Gametophytes
- Mosses and other bryophytes have life
cycles dominated by gametophytes.
• - Ferns and other seedless vascular plants
have sporophyte–dominated life cycles.

• - The evolutionary trend of gametophyte

reduction continued further in the vascular
plant lineage that led to seed plants.
• - The gametophytes of seedless vascular
plants are visible to the naked eye.
• - The gametophytes of seed plants are
mostly microscopic.
• The microscopic gametophytes allowed for an
important evolutionary innovation in seed plants:
• - The tiny gametophytes can develop from spores
retained within the sporangia of the parental
sporophyte.
• - the delicate female (egg–containing) gametophytes
are protected from environmental stresses.
• - The moist reproductive tissues of the sporophyte
shield the gametophytes from drought conditions
and from UV radiation.
• - The dependent gametophytes obtain nutrients from
the sporophyte.
• - Contrast the sporophyte–gametophyte
relationships in bryophytes, seedless vascular
plants, and seed plants.
Gametophyte/sporophyte relationships. 
• Heterospory: The Rule Among Seed Plants
- Nearly all seedless plants are homosporous
—they produce one kind of spore, which
usually gives rise to a bisexual gametophyte.
• - The closest relatives of seed plants are all
homosporous, suggesting that seed plants
also had homosporous ancestors.
• - At some point, seed plants or their
ancestors became heterosporous:
• (Megasporangia in megasporophylls produce
megaspores that give rise to female
gametophytes, and
• microsporangia in microsporophylls
produce microspores that give rise to male
gametophytes.
• - Each megasporangium has a single
functional megaspore
• - Each microsporangium contains vast
numbers of microspores.

- The development of the female

gametophyte within an ovule.
• - The development of the male
gametophyte in a pollen grain.
• - The transformation of the ovule into a
seed after fertilization.
• Ovules and Production of Eggs
• - Seed plants are unique in retaining the
megaspore within the parent sporophyte
• - Layers of sporophyte tissue called
integuments envelop and protect the
megasporangium.
• - Gymnosperm megaspores are surrounded
by one integument, whereas those in
angiosperms usually have two integuments.
• - The whole structure—megasporangium,
megaspore, and their integument(s)—is
called an ovule.
• - Inside each ovule, a female gametophyte
develops from a megaspore and produces
one or more egg cells.
• Pollen and Production of Sperm
- Microspores develop into pollen grains,
which contain the male gametophytes of
seed plants.
• - Pollen grains can be carried away from their
parent plant by wind or by hitchhiking on the
body of an animal that visits the plant to
feed.
• - The transfer of pollen to the part of a seed
plant containing the ovules is called
pollination.
• - If a pollen grain germinates (begins
growing), it gives rise to a pollen tube that
discharges two sperm into the female
gametophyte within the ovule.
From ovule to seed
• The Evolutionary Advantage of Seeds
- What exactly is a seed?
• - If a sperm fertilizes an egg of a seed
plant, the zygote grows into a
sporophyte embryo.
• - The whole ovule develops into a seed,
which consists of the embryo, along
with a food supply, packaged within a
protective coat derived from the
integument(s).
Diversity of Gymnosperms
Diversity of Gymnosperms (Cont.)
The life cycle of a pine
The structure of an idealized flower
The life cycle of an angiosperm
Diversity of Angiosperms