More Articles . How Plants Reproduce Plants create more of their own species by sexual reproduction or by asexual reproduction. With sexual reproduction, a male sperm cell joins with a female egg cell to produce a new plant, hereditary information from both plants is passed to the new plant. Asexual reproduction often involves the division of one plant into one or more parts that become new plants, this type of asexual reproduction is called vegetative propagation and genetic material is passed to the offspring by the single parent plant.
Many plants can reproduce both sexually and by vegetative propagation.
Sexual reproduction in plants happens with the complex cycle we call alternation of generations. It may produce one or the other or both, depending on the plant species. Fertilization occurs when the sperm and egg cell unite and the egg develops into the second phase of the plant's life cycle where the plant is called a sporophyte or spore-bearing plant. This spore-bearing part of the plants life is typically what people see and recognize as a plant. Sporophytes produce tiny structures called spores through a process of cell division called meiosis.