Oophore

Oophore, or Oophyte, the stage in the life-cycle of one of'the higher plants that bears the sexual organs. Thus, in mosses, ferns, and flowering plants, which are grouped together as Archegoniatce, because they have the oosphere enclosed in an archegonium (q.v.), there is a more or less distinct alternation of generations (q.v.), the sexual oophore and the asexual sporophore (q.v.). In mosses (q.v.) the oophore stage is the conspicuous leafy plant; in ferns and their allies [Pteridophyta] it is the small and generally transient prothallium (q.v.), and in flowering plants [Phanerogamia] it is furthe'r reduced to the archisperm and the "included cells" of the pollen-grain,. mere parts of the female and male spores.'