Mother-cell definition

A tissue mother-cell of the xylem may, in the most advanced types of Dicotyledons, give rise to(I) a tracheid; (2) a segment of a vessel; (3) a xylem-fibre; or (4) a vertical file of xylem-parenchyma cells.

The two divisions of the spore mother cell in which the reduction takes place, follow each other very rapidly and are known as Heterotype and Homotype (Flemming), or according to the terminology of Farmer and Moore (1905) as the meiotic phase.

In the spermatozoids of Chara, Vascular Cryptogams, and in those of Cycas, Zamia and Ginkgo, the cilia arise from a centrosome-like body which is found on one side of the nucleus of the spermatozoid mother-cell.