sporeling

The sporeling is an early stage in the life cycle of bryophytes, which are nonvascular seedless plants like mosses, hornworts, and liverworts. When a bryophyte spore germinates, it typically develops into a protonema. In most liverworts and hornworts, this protonema is reduced to a few cells and is referred to as a sporeling. This stage precedes the development of the more organized gametophyte plant, which is the generation that produces the sex organs. The gametophyte is the dominant and longer-lived generation in bryophytes.12