The sexual special cell is termed the spore.
The sexual special cells are of one kind or of two kinds.
Those which are of one kind may be termed, from their habit of yoking themselves together, zygoblasts, or conjugating cells.
Those which are of two kinds are, first, a generally aggressive and motile fertilizing or so-called "male cell," called in its typical form an antherozoid; and, second, a passive and motionless receptive or so-called "female cell," called an oosphere.
The product of the union of two zygoblasts is termed a zygospore.
The product of the union of an antherozoid and an oosphere is termed an oospore.
In many cases the differentiation of the sexual cells does not proceed so far as the formation of antherozoids or of distinct oospheres; these cases I shall investigate with the others in detail presently.
First, then, I will point out some of the modes of vegetative reproduction.
The commonest of these is cell division, as seen in unicellular plants, such as protococcus, where the one cell which composes the plant simply divides into two, and each newly formed cell is then a complete plant.
The particular kind of cell division termed "budding" here deserves mention. It is well seen in the yeast-plant, where the cell bulges at one side, and this bulge becomes larger until it is nipped off from the parent by contraction at the point of junction, and is then an independent plant.