Pollen vs. Spore — What's the Difference?

Pollen is a powdery substance consisting of pollen grains which are male microgametophytes of seed plants, which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophytes during the process of their movement from the stamens to the pistil of flowering plants, or from the male cone to the female cone of coniferous plants.

In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores form part of the life cycles of many plants, algae, fungi and protozoa.

The fine powderlike material whose individual grains contain the male reproductive cells of seed plants. Pollen is produced in the anther in angiosperms and in the male cone in gymnosperms.

A small, usually single-celled reproductive body that is resistant to adverse environmental conditions and is capable of growing into a new organism, produced especially by certain fungi, algae, protozoans, and nonseedbearing plants such as mosses and ferns.

A fine, granular substance produced in flowers.

A megaspore or microspore.

(botany) Pollen grains (microspores) produced in the anthers of flowering plants.

A dormant nonreproductive body formed by certain bacteria often in response to a lack of nutrients, and characteristically being highly resistant to heat, desiccation, and destruction by chemicals or enzymes.

(obsolete) Fine powder in general, fine flour.

To produce spores.

To cover with, or as if with, pollen.

A reproductive particle, usually a single cell, released by a fungus, alga, or plant that may germinate into another.

Fine bran or flour.

A thick resistant particle produced by a bacterium or protist to survive in harsh or unfavorable conditions.

The fecundating dustlike cells of the anthers of flowers. See Flower, and Illust. of Filament.

To produce spores.

The fine spores that contain male gametes and that are borne by an anther in a flowering plant

One of the minute grains in flowerless plants, which are analogous to seeds, as serving to reproduce the species.

An embryo sac or embryonal vesicle in the ovules of flowering plants.

A minute grain or germ; a small, round or ovoid body, formed in certain organisms, and by germination giving rise to a new organism; as, the reproductive spores of bacteria, etc.

A small usually single-celled reproductive body produced by many plants and some protozoans and that develops into a new individual;