I. Vegetative Propagation.
The simplest case of vegetative multiplication is afforded by unicellular plants. When the cell which constitutes the body of the plant has attained its limit of size it gives rise to two either by division or gemmation; the two cells then grow, and at the same time become separated from each other, so that eventually two new distinct individuals are produced, each of which precisely resembles the original organism. A good example of this is to be found in the germination of the yeast plant. This mode of multiplication is simply the result of the ordinary processes of growth. All plant-cells grow and divide at some time or other of their life; but whereas in a multicellular plant the products of division remain coherent, and add to the number of the cells of which the plant consists, in a unicellular plant they separate and constitute new individuals. In more highly organized plants vegetative propagation may be effected by the separation of the different parts of the body from each other, each such part developing the missing members and thus constituting a new individual. This takes place spontaneously in rhizomatous plants, in which the main stem gradually dies away from behind forwards; the lateral branches thus become isolated and constitute new individuals.
The remarkable regenerative capacity of plant-members is largely made use of for the artificial propagation of plants. A branch removed from a parent-plant will, under appropriate conditions, develop roots, and so constitute a new plant; this is the theory of propagation by “cuttings.” A portion of a root will similarly develop one or more shoots, and thus give rise to a new plant. An isolated leaf will, in many cases, produce a shoot and a root, that is, a new plant; it is in this way that new begonias, for instance, are propagated. The production of plants from leaves occurs also in nature, as, for instance, in certain so-called “viviparous” plants, of which Bryophyllum calycinum (Crassulaceae) and many ferns [Nephrodium (Lastraea) Filix-mas, Asplenium (Athyrium) Filix-foemina and other species of Asplenium] are examples. But it is in the mosses, of all plants, that the capacity for vegetative propagation is most widely diffused. Any part of a moss, whether it be the stem, the leaves, the rhizoids, or the sporogonium, is capable, under appropriate conditions, of giving rise to filamentous protonema, on which new moss-plants are then developed as lateral buds.
In a large number of plants provision is made for vegetative propagation by the development of more or less highly specialized organs. In lichens, for instance, there are the soredia, which are minute buds of the thallus containing both algal and fungal elements; these are set free on the surface in large numbers, and each grows into a thallus. In the Characeae there are the bulbils or “starch-stars” of Chara stelligera, which are underground nodes, and the branches with naked base and the proembryonic branches found by Pringsheim on old nodes of Chara fragilis. In the mosses small tuberous bulbils frequently occur on the rhizoids, and in many instances (Bryum annotinum, Aulacomnion androgynum, Tetraphis pellucida, &c.) stalked fusiform or lenticular multicellular bodies containing chlorophyll, termed gemmae, are produced on the shoots, either in the axils of the leaves or in special receptacles at the summit of the stem. Gemmae of this kind are produced in vast numbers in Marchantia and Lunularia among the liverworts. Similar gemmae are also produced by the prothallia of ferns. In some ferns (e.g. Nephrolepis tuberosa and undulata) the buds borne on the leaves or in their axils become swollen and filled with nutritive materials, constituting bulbils which fall off and give rise to new plants. This conversion of buds into bulbils, which subserve vegetative multiplication, occurs also occasionally among Phanerogams, as for instance in Lilium bulbiferum, species of Poa, Polygonum viviparum, &c. But many other adaptations of the same kind occur among Phanerogams. Bulbous plants, for instance, produce each year at least one bulb or corm from which a new plant is produced in the succeeding year. In the potato, tubers are developed from subterranean shoots, each of which in the following year gives rise to a new individual. In the dahlia, Thladiantha dubia, &c., tuberous swellings are found on the roots, from each of which a new individual may spring.
II. True Reproduction.
This is effected by cells formed by the proper reproductive organs. These cells are of two principal kinds. There are, first, those cells each of which is capable of developing by itself into a new organism: these are the asexual reproductive cells, known generally as spores. Secondly, there are the cells which are incapable of independent germination; it is not until these cells have fused together in pairs that a new organism can be developed: these are the sexual reproductive cells or gametes.
In some exceptional cases the normal mode of reproduction, sexual or asexual, does not take place: instead, the new organism is developed vegetatively from the parent. When sexual reproduction is suppressed the case is one of apogamy; when asexual reproduction by spores is suppressed the case is one of apospory. (Apogamy and apospory are discussed below in the section on Abnormalities of Reproduction.)
Asexual Reproduction.—Reproduction by means of some kind of spore (using the term in its widest sense, so as to include all asexually produced reproductive cells) is common to nearly all families of plants; it is wanting in certain Algae (Conjugatae, Fucaceae, Characeae), and in certain fungi (e.g. some Peronosporeae). The structure of a spore is essentially this: it consists of a nucleated mass of protoplasm, enclosing starch or oil as reserve nutritive material, usually invested by a cell-wall. In those cases in which the spore is capable of germinating immediately on its development the cell-wall is a single delicate membrane consisting of cellulose; but in those cases in which the spore may or must pass through a period of quiescence before germination the wall becomes thickened and may consist of two layers, an inner, the endospore, which is delicate and consists of cellulose, and an outer, the exospore, which is thick and rigid, frequently darkly coloured and beset externally with spines or bosses, and which consists of cutin. In some few cases among the fungi, multicellular or septate spores are produced; these approximate somewhat to the gemmae mentioned above as highly specialized organs for vegetative propagation. In some cases, particularly among the algae, and also in some fungi (Peronosporeae, Saprolegnieae, Chytridiaceae, and the Myxomycetes), spores are produced which are usually destitute of any cell-wall, and are further peculiar in that they are motile, and are therefore termed zoospores; they move sometimes in an amoeboid manner by the protrusion of pseudopodia, but more frequently they are provided with one, two, or many delicate vibratile protoplasmic filaments, termed cilia, by the lashing of which the spore is propelled through the water. The zoospore eventually comes to rest, withdraws its cilia, surrounds itself with a cell-wall, and then germinates.
In the simplest case a single spore is developed from the cell of the unicellular plant, the protoplasm of which surrounds itself with the characteristic thick wall. This occurs only in plants of low organization such as the Schizophyta.
In other cases the contents of the cell undergo division, each portion of the protoplasm constituting a spore. Examples of this are afforded, among unicellular plants, by yeast and the Protococcaceae; and in multicellular plants by the Pandorineae, Confervaceae, Ulvaceae, &c., where any cell of the body may produce spores.
In such cases the spore-producing cell may be regarded as a rudimentary reproductive organ of the nature of a sporangium; In more highly organized plants special organs are differentiated for the production of spores. In the majority of cases the special organ is a sporangium, that is, a capsule in the interior of which the spores are developed; but in many fungi the spores are formed by abstraction from an organ termed a sporophore. In the Thallophyta the sporangium is commonly a single cell. In the Bryophyta it is a multicellular capsule. In the Pteridophyta the sporangium is multicellular, but simple in structure, and this is true also of the Phanerogams.
