Spore
(from spora, seed). The name given to those bodies in Cryptogams that reproduce the species, and from which young plants grow. Some Spores resemble the seeds of Phanerogams, or flowering plants, in being produced sexually; but they differ in the Spore never inclosing an embryo or young plant, as the seed does. The Spore, in fact, corresponds to the embryo itself, rather than to the entire seed. But, in addition to these sexual Spores, most Cryptogams produce others asexually from single cells, by a process of budding, or of cell division. These asexual Spores may very closely resemble the sexual in appearance; but they are often very different, and frequently a plant bears two or three varied forms of asexual Spores, produced, it may be, under different conditions as regards food, temperature, and environments. They often receive special names, e.g., Conidia, Sporidia, Stylospores, Zoospores, and so forth among Fungi; and Stylospores, Tetraspores, &c., among Algae. For a fuller account of the forms assumed by Spores among Fungi, see Mushrooms, Oidium, Peronospora, Pleospora and Puccinia; and for a description of the life-cycle of the higher Cryptogams, and of the part played by Spores in the cycle, see Mosses and Prothallus.