Plants have complex lifecycles involving an alternation of generations. One generation, the sporophyte, produces spores which then grow to become the next generation, the gametophyte. These produce gametes, the eggs and sperm, which then unite and grow to become sporophytes, completing the cycle.

Spores may be identical (isospores) or come in different sizes (microspores and megaspores), but strictly speaking, spores and sporophytes are neither male nor female because they do not produce gametes. The alternate generation, gametophytes, can be monoicous (bisexual), where an individual can produce both eggs and sperm, or dioicous (unisexual), where one produces only eggs and another produces only sperm.

In angiosperms the flower is the characteristic sexual reproductive structure, which varies enormously across the group. The bisexual flower (termed "perfect" botanically), of Ranunculus glaberrimus in the figure provides an example of the common structures.