They have just grown from the spores. Although they all look pretty much alike, some of these little sprigs are male and some are female. If you look at the pictures of the cells beside the sprigs, you will see that each cell in the picture has only half the number of chromosomes. This is called the haploid generation . Sperm swims to eggs in female moss plants .
Rain falls on the moss.
The male moss plants have made sperm. Now that there is a film of water to swim in, they swim to the eggs that the female moss plants have made. The eggs are fertilized when the sperms reach the eggs. The fertilized eggs are called zygotes . The zygotes have chromosomes from both the male and female parents.