Britannica Sources used in this answer

Which seed plants have flagellated sperm?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Cluster of bright red seeds emerging from the cone-shaped fruit of a magnolia grandiflora, surrounded by large, glossy green leaves. — Seed Fruit and seeds of the southern magnolia (*Magnolia grandiflora*). The fruit is an aggregate of follicles, and each follicle bears a single red seed.

Among extant seed plants, only the ginkgo and the cycads possess flagellated sperm.12

In these groups, the presence of swimming sperm is considered a primitive, transitional evolutionary condition. While most other seed plants—including all angiosperms and the majority of gymnosperms—have evolved nonflagellated sperm that are transported to the egg via a pollen tube, ginkgo and cycads retain this ancestral trait.134