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How Do the Sperm Nuclei in a Pollen Grain Get to the Egg Nucleus in a Plant Ovule?
How Do the Sperm Nuclei in a Pollen Grain Get to the Egg Nucleus in a Plant Ovule?. Pollination is to plants what sex is to humans: a way to transfer sperm and fertilize an egg. Once pollen lands on a flower, it must develop a pollen tube so that its sperm can reach the ovary of the flower.
Pollination is to plants what sex is to humans: a way to transfer sperm and fertilize an egg. Once pollen lands on a flower, it must develop a pollen tube so that its sperm can reach the ovary of the flower.
Pollen
Each pollen grain contains a germ cell and a vegetative cell. Once the pollen grain lands on the stigma of a flower, the germ cell divides to form two sperm.
Pollen Tube
In the meantime the pollen grain begins to develop a pollen tube that bores through the flower towards the ovary. The pollen tube provides a conduit through which the sperm can travel to reach the ovary and fertilize eggs.
Fertilization
The pollen tube grows its way into the ovules inside the ovary. Once the sperm travel down through the pollen tube, one of them will fuse with and fertilize the egg, while the other will fuse with polar nuclei, or nuclei near the center of the ovule. The fertilized egg will form the zygote, which becomes the embryo; the polar nuclei, on the other hand, go on to become the endosperm, which provides food for the growing seed.
