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The gymnosperms (/ ˈ dʒ ɪ m n ə ˌ s p ɜːr m z,-n oʊ-/ ⓘ nə-spurmz, -noh-; lit. ' revealed seeds ') are a group of woody, perennial seed-producing plants, typically lacking the protective outer covering which surrounds the seeds in flowering plants, that include conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, and gnetophytes, forming the clade Gymnospermae [2] The term gymnosperm comes from the ...
The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers.They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissues that conduct water and nutrients, and in having life cycles in which the branched sporophyte is the dominant phase.
The gymnosperms consist of five orders of seed plants: Cupressales, Cycadales, Ginkgoales, Gnetales and Pinales. [a] They developed more than 350 million years ago, long before flowering plants, according to the fossil record. The name comes from the Greek for "naked seed"; the egg cells are not protected by ovaries, as in flowering plants. [4]
The spermatophytes were traditionally divided into angiosperms, or flowering plants, and gymnosperms, which includes the gnetophytes, cycads, [5] ginkgo, and conifers. Older morphological studies believed in a close relationship between the gnetophytes and the angiosperms, [6] in particular based on vessel elements.
The term "fern ally" included under Pteridophyta generally refers to vascular spore-bearing plants that are not ferns, including lycopods, horsetails, whisk ferns and water ferns (Marsileaceae, Salviniaceae and Ceratopteris). This is not a natural grouping but rather a convenient term for non-fern, and is also discouraged, as is eusporangiate ...
The euphyllophytes consist of two lineages, the spermatophytes or seed plants such as flowering plants (angiosperms) and gymnosperms (conifers and related groups), and the Polypodiophytes or ferns, as well as a number of extinct fossil groups. [4]
The ferns and horsetails (the Polypodiophyta) form a clade; they use spores as their main method of dispersal. Traditionally, whisk ferns and horsetails were historically treated as distinct from 'true' ferns. [51] Living whisk ferns and horsetails do not have the large leaves (megaphylls) which would be expected of euphyllophytes.
PPG I uses 18 lycopod and 319 fern genera. [1] The earlier system put forward by Smith et al. (2006) had suggested a range of 274 to 312 genera for ferns alone. [2] By contrast, the system of Christenhusz and Chase (2014) used 5 lycopod and about 212 fern genera. [3] The number of fern genera was further reduced to 207 in a subsequent ...