Pollen form two sperm cells. The sperm cells are carried to their destination in the tip of the pollen tube. Double-strand breaks in DNA that arise during pollen tube growth appear to be efficiently repaired in the generative cell that carries the male genomic information to be passed on to the next plant generation. However, the vegetative cell that is responsible for tube elongation appears to lack this DNA repair capability. Pollen's sporopollenin outer sheath affords it some resistance to the rigours of the fossilisation process that destroy weaker objects; it is also produced in huge quantities. There is an extensive
Tylosis (botany) Tylosis (botany) A tylosis (plural: tyloses) is a bladder-like distension of a parenchyma cell into the lumen of adjacent vessels in wood. Less certainly, the term tylosis is in use to summarise the physiological process and the resulting occlusion in the xylem of woody plants as response to injury or as protection from decay in heartwood. It is a key process in wall one of the Compartmentalization Of Decay In Trees (CODIT) and other woody plants. Observed in section under a microscope, tyloses appear as balloon-like protrusions emanating from axial paratracheal parenchyma cells into xylem vessels through pits linking the