It seems to me that the spores produced by bread mould are actually its seeds but my textbook says that they are not.
My rationale is that spores are seeds of bread mould because both spores and seeds perform similar functions: both of them develop into a new organism under favourable environmental conditions.
So, are spores seeds, or is there a flaw in my reasoning?
It really is about language, and science uses precise terms. So although spores seem similar to seeds, "seed" is a specific term for a fertilized ovule that is restricted to conifers and seed plants, or gymnosperms and angiosperms. Moss and ferns, which are deeper on the phylogeny of plants, don't make seeds either, but reproduce with spores.
No as as a seed is a specific multicellular structure formed from a fertilised ovule found only in most spermatophytes
Furthermore a spore is at one stage produced within the ovule however it grows into a gametophyte without being dispersed
Spores are actually haploid structures created from the sporophylls of lower plants and thallophytes (Some pteridophytes, Bryophytes, Algae, Fungi and bacteria). However, seeds are the structures formed by higher plants like gymnosperms and angiosperms and are diploid. Spores are a result of meiosis of spore mother cells or zygote(thallophytes) and are usually a characteristic of a predominantly haplontic life cycle or haplo-diplontic life cycles. Fungi form spores by meiosis of the nucleus formed after plasmogamy and karyogamy.
It mostly depends on what you define spores and seeds as, but according to the "official" definition, the answer is no. And just because two things do the same thing, doesn't mean they're the same. Pens and pencils do the same thing. They're different. See the Internet or something for the "official" definition.
