Spermatophyte
The spermatophytes comprise those
plants that produce
seeds. They are a subset of the
embryophytes or land plants: living spermatophytes include
cycads,
Ginkgo,
conifers, gnetae, and
angiosperms
Seed-bearing plants were traditionally divided into
angiosperms, or flowering plants, and
gymnosperms, which includes the gnetae, cycads, ginkgo, and conifers. Angiosperms are now thought to have evolved from a gymnosperm ancestor, which would make gymnosperms a
paraphyletic group if it includes extinct taxa. Modern
cladistics attempts to define taxa that are
monophyletic, traceable to a common ancestor and inclusive therefore of all descendants of that common ancestor.
Encyclopedia
The
spermatophytes comprise those
plants that produce
seeds. They are a subset of the
embryophytes or land plants: living spermatophytes include
cycads,
Ginkgo,
conifers, gnetae, and
angiospermsSeed-bearing plants were traditionally divided into
angiosperms, or flowering plants, and
gymnosperms, which includes the gnetae, cycads, ginkgo, and conifers. Angiosperms are now thought to have evolved from a gymnosperm ancestor, which would make gymnosperms a
paraphyletic group if it includes extinct taxa. Modern
cladistics attempts to define taxa that are
monophyletic, traceable to a common ancestor and inclusive therefore of all descendants of that common ancestor. Although not a monophyletic taxonomic unit, "gymnosperm" is still widely used to distinguish the four taxa of non-flowering, seed-bearing plants from the angiosperms.
Molecular phylogenies have conflicted with morphologically-based evidence as to whether extant gymnosperms comprise a monophyletic group. Some morphological data suggests that the Gnetophytes are the sister-group to angiosperms, but molecular phylogenies have generally shown a monophyletic gymnosperm clade that includes the Gnetophytes as sister-group to the conifers.
A traditional classification grouped all the seed plants together as follows:
- Division Spermatophyta
- Cycadopsida, the cycads
- Ginkgoopsida, the ginkgo
- Pinopsida, the conifers,
- Gnetopsida, including Gnetum, Welwitschia is a monotypic genus [i] of gymnosperm [i] plant [i], comprising the very distinct Wel ...
, Ephedra - Magnoliopsida, the flowering plants, or Angiospermopsida
In addition to the taxa listed above, the fossil record contains evidence of many
extinct taxa of seed plants. The so-called "seed ferns" were one of the earliest successful groups of land plants, and forests dominated by seed ferns were prevalent in the late Paleozoic.
Glossopteris was the most prominent
tree genus in the ancient southern supercontinent of
Gondwana during the Permian period. By the Triassic period, seed ferns had declined in ecological importance, and representatives of modern gymnosperm groups were abundant and dominant through the end of the Cretaceous, when angiosperms radiated.
A more modern classification splits these groups into separate divisions :
References
- Bowe, L. Michelle, Gwénaële Coat, and Claude W. dePamphilis. 2000. Phylogeny of seed plants based on all three genomic compartments: Extant gymnosperms are monophyletic and Gnetales' closest relatives are conifers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97: 4092-4097.
- Soltis, Douglas E., Pamela S. Soltis and Michael J. Zanis. 2002. Phylogeny of seed plants based on evidence from eight genes. American Journal of Botany 89: 1670-1681 .
- Chaw, Shu-Miaw, Christopher L. Parkinson, Yuchang Cheng, Thomas M. Vincent, and Jeffrey D. Palmer. 2000. Seed plant phylogeny inferred from all three plant genomes: Monophyly of extant gymnosperms and origin of Gnetales from conifers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97: 4086-4091 .
