Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The haploid gamete-producing phase in a plant characterized by alternation of generations.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In thallophytes, the sexual form of the plant, as distinguished from the sporophyte, or asexual form.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) In the alternation of generations in plants, that generation or phase which bears sex organs and produces gametes. In the lower plants, as the algæ, the gametophyte is the conspicuous part of the plant body; in mosses it is the so-called moss plant; in ferns it is reduced to a small, early perishing body; and in seed plants it is usually microscopic or rudimentary.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun botany A plant (or the haploid phase in its life cycle) which produces gametes by mitosis in order to produce a zygote.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the gamete-bearing individual or phase in the life cycle of a plant having alternation of generations

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From gamete +‎ -phyte

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