question_answer

Give reason for the following.

(i) Cut pieces of a Bryophyllum when put into wet soil produce new plants.

(ii) In the whiptail lizards, only females are born generation after generation.

(iii) Fertilisation in bryophytes/pteridophytes is considered as internal fertilisation.

Answer:

(i) Adventitious buds arise from the notches present along the margin in the leaves of Bryophyllum, each bud grows into a new plant when put into wet soil.

(ii) The whiptail lizard shows parthenogenesis, the phenomenon in which the female gamete undergoes development without fertilisation into an adult.

(iii) In bryophytes/pteridophytes, syngamy occurs inside the body (in the archegonia) of the plants and hence, it is called internal fertilisation.