Embryophyte

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Embryophyte

The embryophytes are the most familiar group of plant

Plant

Plants are Life organisms belonging to the Kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae....
s. They include tree

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
s, flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s, fern

Fern

A fern is any one of a group of about 20,000 species of plants classified in the phylum or division Pteridophyta, also known as Filicophyta....
s, moss

Moss

Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1?10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations....
es, and various other green land plants. All are complex multicellular eukaryote

Eukaryote

Animals, plants, fungus, and protists are eukaryotes , organisms whose Cell are organized into complex structures enclosed within Cell membrane....
s with specialized reproductive organs. With very few exceptions, embryophytes obtain their energy through photosynthesis

Photosynthesis

File:Seawifs global biosphere.jpgPhotosynthesis is a metabolic pathway that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight....
(that is, by absorbing light); and they synthesize their food from carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalent bond to a single carbon atom. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and exists in Earth's atmosphere in this state....
. Embryophyta may be distinguished from chlorophyll

Chlorophyll

Chlorophyll is a green pigment found in most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. Its name is derived from Greek language: ?????? and f????? ....
-using multicellular algae

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms. The largest and most complex marine forms are called seaweeds....
by having sterile tissue within the reproductive organs.

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Encyclopedia

The embryophytes are the most familiar group of plant

Plant

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
s, flower

Flower

Fern

A fern is any one of a group of about 20,000 species of plants classified in the phylum or division Pteridophyta, also known as Filicophyta....
s, moss

Moss

Eukaryote

Photosynthesis

Carbon dioxide

Chlorophyll

Chlorophyll is a green pigment found in most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. Its name is derived from Greek language: ?????? and f????? ....
-using multicellular algae

Algae

Aquatic plant

Aquatic plants — also called hydrophytic plants or hydrophytes — are plants that have adapted to living in or on aquatic environments....
. Accordingly, they are often called land plants or terrestrial plants.

Embryophytes developed from complex green algae (Chlorophyta

Chlorophyta

Chlorophyta, a division of green algae, includes about 7000 species of mostly Aquatic ecosystem photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. Like the land plants , green algae contain chlorophylls a and b, and store food as starch in their plastids....
) during the Paleozoic

Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
era. The Charales

Charales

Charales is an order of pondweeds, freshwater algae in the division Charophyta. They are green Plantae believed to be the closest relatives of the Embryophyta....
or stoneworts appear to be the best living illustration of that developmental step. These alga-like plants undergo an alternation

Alternation of generations

The Alternation of phases describes the life cycle of plants, fungi and protists. A multicellular diploid phase alternates with a multicellular haploid phase....
between haploid and diploid generations (respectively called gametophyte

Gametophyte

In plants and algae that undergo alternation of generations, a gametophyte is the multicellular structure, or phase, that is haploid, containing a single set of chromosomes:...
s and sporophyte

Sporophyte

All land plants, and some algae, have life cycles in which a haploid gametophyte generation alternates with a diploid sporophyte, the generation of a plant or alga that has a double set of chromosomes....
s). In the first embryophytes, however, the sporophytes became very different in structure and function, remaining small and dependent on the parent for their entire brief life. Such plants are informally called 'bryophytes'. They include three surviving groups:

Bryophyta
Moss

Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1?10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations....
(mosses)
Anthocerotophyta
Hornwort

Hornworts are a group of bryophytes, or non-vascular plants, comprising the division Anthocerotophyta. The common name refers to the elongated horn-like structure, which is the sporophyte....
(hornworts)
Marchantiophyta (liverworts)

All of the above 'bryophytes' are relatively small and are usually confined to moist environments, relying on water to disperse their spore

Spore

In biology, a spore is a reproduction structure that is adapted for biological dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions....
s. Other plants, better adapted to terrestrial conditions, appeared during the Silurian

Silurian

The Silurian is a geologic period that extends from the end of the Ordovician period, about 443.7 ? 1.5 annum , to the beginning of the Devonian period, about 416.0 ? 2.8 Mya ....
period. During the Devonian

Devonian

The Devonian is a geologic period of the Paleozoic era spanning from . It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied....
period, they diversified and spread to many different land environments, becoming the vascular plant

Vascular plant

Vascular plants are those plants that have lignin tissue for conducting water, minerals, and photosynthetic products through the plant. Vascular plants include the ferns, clubmosses, flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms....
s or tracheophytes. Tracheophyta have vascular tissues or tracheid

Tracheid

Tracheids are elongated cell s in the xylem of vascular plants, serving in the transport of water and mineral salts. The build of tracheids will vary according to where they occur....
s, which transport water throughout the body, and an outer layer or cuticle that resists drying out

Desiccation

Desiccation is the state of extreme dryness, or the process of extreme drying. A desiccant is a hygroscopic substance that induces or sustains such a state in its local vicinity in a moderately-well sealed container....
. In most vascular plants, the sporophyte is the dominant individual, and develops true leaves

Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
, stems

Plant stem

A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant. The stem is normally divided into nodes and internodes, the nodes hold buds which grow into one or more leaf, inflorescence , conifer cones or other stems etc....
, and root

Root

In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant body that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial root or aerating ....
s, while the gametophyte remains very small.

Many vascular plants, however, still disperse using spores. They include two extant groups:

Lycopodiophyta
Lycopodiophyta

The Division Lycopodiophyta is a vascular plant subdivision of the Kingdom Plantae. It is the oldest extant vascular plant division at around 420 million years old, and includes some of the most "primitive" extant species....
(clubmosses)
Pteridophyta (ferns, whisk ferns, and horsetail
Horsetail

Equisetum is the only living genus in the Equisetaceae, a family of vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds. They are commonly known as horsetails....
s)

Other groups, which first appeared towards the end of the Paleozoic era, reproduce using desiccation

Desiccation

Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
s. These groups are accordingly called spermatophyte

Spermatophyte

The spermatophytes comprise those plants that produce seeds. They are a subset of the embryophytes or land plants. The living spermatophytes form five groups:...
s or seed plants. In these forms, the gametophyte is completely reduced, taking the form of single-celled pollen

Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of Gametophyte , which produce the male gametes of spermatophyta. A hard coat covering the pollen grain protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower....
and ova

Ovum

An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization....
, while the sporophyte begins its life enclosed within the seed. Some seed plants may even survive in extremely arid conditions, unlike their more water-bound precursors. The seed plants include the following extant groups:

Cycadophyta (cycads)
Ginkgophyta (ginkgo)
Pinophyta (conifers)
Gnetophyta (gnetae)
Magnoliophyta (flowering plants)

The first four groups are referred to as gymnosperm

Gymnosperm

Gymnosperm is a group of spermatophyte seed-bearing plants with ovules on scales, which are usually arranged in cone-like structures. The other major group of seed-bearing plants, the angiosperms, [from the Greek, 'angion' - container] have ovules enclosed in a carpel, a sporophyll with fused margins....
s, since the embryonic sporophyte is not enclosed until after pollination. In contrast, among the flowering plants or angiosperms, the pollen has to grow a tube to penetrate the seed coat. Angiosperms were the last major group of plants to appear, developing from gymnosperms during the Jurassic

Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period that extends from about annum to Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous....
period, and then spreading rapidly during the Cretaceous

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide, is a geologic period from circa to million years ago . In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows on the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period....
. They are the predominant group of plants in most terrestrial

Terrestrial plant

A terrestrial plant is one that grows on land. Other types of plants are aquatic ecosystem , epiphytic and lithophytes ....
biome

Biome

Biomes are Climateally and geographically defined areas of ecologically similar climatic conditions such as Community of plants, animals, and Soil biology, and are often referred to as ecosystems....
s today.

Note that the higher-level classification

Statistical classification

Statistical classification is a procedure in which individual items are placed into groups based on quantitative information on one or more characteristics inherent in the items and based on a training set of previously labeled items....
of plants varies considerably. Some authors have restricted the kingdom

Kingdom (biology)

In Biology taxonomy, kingdom or regnum is a taxonomic rank in either the highest rank, or the Rank below domain . Each kingdom is divided into smaller groups called Phylum ....
Plantae to include only embryophytes, others have given them various names and ranks. The groups listed here are often considered divisions or phyla

Phylum

A phylum "Phylum" is adopted from the Greek phylai, the clan-based voting groups in Greek city-states. is a taxonomic rank below Kingdom and above Class ....
, but have also been treated as classes, and they are occasionally compressed into as few as two divisions. Some classifications, indeed, consider the term Embryophyta at the superphylum (superdivision) level, and include Land Plants and some Charophyceae in a subkingdom named Streptophyta.

On a microscopic level, embryophyte cells remain very similar to those of green algae. They are eukaryotic

Eukaryote

Animals, plants, fungus, and protists are eukaryotes , organisms whose Cell are organized into complex structures enclosed within Cell membrane....
, with a cell wall

Cell wall

A cell wall is a tough, flexible and sometimes fairly rigid layer that surrounds some types of cell . It is located outside the cell membrane and provides these cells with structural support and protection, and also acts as a filtering mechanism....
composed of cellulose

Cellulose

File:Cellulose Sessel.svgCellulose is an organic compound with the chemical formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to over ten thousand ? linked D-glucose units....
and plastid

Plastid

Plastids are major organelles found in plants and algae. Plastids are the site of manufacture and storage of important chemical compounds used by the cell....
s surrounded by two membranes. These usually take the form of chloroplast

Chloroplast

Chloroplasts are organelles found in plant cells and other eukaryote organisms that conduct photosynthesis. Chloroplasts capture light energy to conserve Thermodynamic free energy in the form of Adenosine triphosphate and reduce NADP to NADPH through a complex set of processes called photosynthesis....
s, which conduct photosynthesis and store food in the form of starch

Starch

File:Amylose2.svgFile:Amylopektin Sessel.svgStarch or amylum is a polysaccharide carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds....
, and characteristically are pigmented with chlorophylls a and b, generally giving them a bright green color. Embryophytes also generally have an enlarged central vacuole

Vacuole

A vacuole is a membrane organelle which is present in all eukaryotic cells. Vacuoles are essentially enclosed compartments which are filled with fluid such as water or various enzymes, though in certain cases they may contain solids which have been engulfed....
or tonoplast, which maintains cell turgor and keeps the plant rigid. They lack flagella

Flagellum

A flagellum is a tail-like structure that projects from the cell body of certain prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, and it functions in locomotion....
and centriole

Centriole

A centriole is a barrel-shaped organelle found in most animal eukaryotic Cell s, though absent in higher plants and most fungi. The walls of each centriole are usually composed of nine triplets of microtubules ....
s except in certain gamete

Gamete

A gamete is a Cell that fuses with another gamete during fertilization in organisms that sexual reproduction. In species which produce two morphologically distinct types of gametes, and in which each individual produces only one type, a female is any individual which produces the larger type of gamete?called an ovum ?and a male produces th...
s.