bio

Sporophyte

The diploid plant body — two chromosome sets, and it makes spores by meiosis. In vascular plants this is the plant in the ordinary sense: a fern, a pine, an oak are all sporophytes. Its advantage is arithmetic. Because the zygote is retained and divides many times before meiosis, a single fertilisation can yield millions of spores rather than a handful. That amplification, plus the vascular tissue that let it grow tall, is why the sporophyte won out over plant history.