Characteristics of seedless nonvascular plant

The life cycle of seedless vascular plants is an alternation of generations, where the diploid sporophyte alternates with the haploid gametophyte phase. This step in reproduction explains why ferns and their relatives are more abundant in damp environments, including marshes and rainforests. Although seedless vascular plants have evolved to spread to all types of habitats, they still depend on water during fertilization, as the sperm must swim on a layer of moisture to reach the egg. The spores are very lightweight (unlike many seeds), which allows for their easy dispersion in the wind and for the plants to spread to new habitats. In seedless vascular plants, such as ferns and horsetails, the plants reproduce using haploid, unicellular spores instead of seeds. Seedless vascular plants are plants that contain vascular tissue, but do not produce flowers or seeds. With these advantages, plants increased in height and size and were able to spread to all habitats. By the late Devonian period, plants had evolved vascular tissue, well-defined leaves, and root systems. More than 260,000 species of tracheophytes represent more than 90 percent of the earthвЂ™s vegetation. They contain tissue that transports water and other substances throughout the plant. The vascular plants, or tracheophytes, are the dominant and most conspicuous group of land plants.

tracheophyte: any plant possessing vascular tissue (xylem and phloem), including ferns, conifers, and flowering plants.

sporophyte: a plant (or the diploid phase in its life cycle) that produces spores by meiosis in order to produce gametophytes.

gametophyte: a plant (or the haploid phase in its life cycle) that produces gametes by mitosis in order to produce a zygote.

Seedless vascular plants require water for sperm motility during reproduction and, thus, are often found in moist environments.

Seedless vascular plants reproduce through unicellular, haploid spores instead of seeds the lightweight spores allow for easy dispersion in the wind.

The life cycle of seedless vascular plants alternates between a diploid sporophyte and a haploid gametophyte phase.

In these plants, the sporophytes grow from and are dependent on gametophytes for taking in water and mineral nutrients and for provision of photosynthate, the products of photosynthesis. ДЄll land plants have a life cycle with an alternation of generations between a diploid sporophyte and a haploid gametophyte, but in all non-vascular land plants the gametophyte generation is dominant. Some liverworts, such as Marchantia have a cuticle and the sporophytes of mosses have both cuticles and stomata, which were important in the evolution of land plants. Consequently, phyllids are unable to control the rate of water loss from their tissues and are said to be poikilohydric. Mosses and leafy liverworts have structures called phyllids that resemble leaves, but only consist of single sheets of cells with no internal air spaces no cuticle or stomata and no xylem or phloem. Non-vascular plants do not have a wide variety of specialized tissue types. Non-vascular plants are often among the first species to move into new and inhospitable territories, along with prokaryotes and protists, and thus function as pioneer species. These groups are sometimes called 'lower plants', referring to their status as the earliest plant groups to evolve, but the usage is imprecise, since both groups are polyphyletic and may be used to include vascular cryptogams, such as the ferns and fern allies that reproduce using spores. Only the groups included in the Viridiplantae are still considered relatives of land plants. The algae consist of several unrelated groups.

Because these plants lack lignified water-conducting tissues, they can't become as tall as most vascular plants.

In all bryophytes, the primary plants are the haploid gametophytes, with the only diploid portion being the attached sporophyte, consisting of a stalk and sporangium. Bryophytes, an informal group that taxonomists now treat as three separate land-plant divisions, namely: Bryophyta (mosses), Marchantiophyta (liverworts), and Anthocerotophyta (hornworts).

Non-vascular plants include two distantly related groups: Instead, they may possess simpler tissues that have specialized functions for the internal transport of water. Non-vascular plants are plants without a vascular system consisting of xylem and phloem. Green algae are a type of non-vascular plant.

Characteristics of seedless nonvascular plant