Seedless Vascular Plants

Tracheophytes have vascular tissue, which allowed them to grow larger than non vascular plants since they can transport water, nutrients, and waste

Roots in tracheophytes allowed them to reach deeper water sources and provide structural support

Dominant sporophyte generation, and lessening size of the gametophyte generation

Roots, stems, and leaves developed through convergent evolution

Club mosses (lycophytes)

• Not true mosses
• In the Carboniferous period they were as large as trees
• Small narrow leaves with a central vein (lycophylls)
• Sporangia are at the base of specialized sporophytes
• Small, free living gametophyte organism
• Motile sperm that need water as a transport medium

Pterophyta:

• Ferns:

• Can be divided based on how spores develop

  • Eusporangiate: sporangium develops from many cells to produces many spores​
  • Leptosporangiate: sporangium develops from​

  a single cell and produces a small number​ of spores

• Most abundant type of tracheophytes

• Some surviving species are as large as trees

• Have roots, stems, and complex leaves called euphylls

• Fronds grow from the rhizome

• Sporangia are called sori and are found on the underside of the frond

• Small, free living, photosynthetic gametophyte

• Motile sperm that needs water for transport

  of spores​

• Horsetails:

• Historically were tree sized

• Jointed stems and reduced scale-like leaves

• Stems contain silica

• Stems can be vegetive or reproductive

• Photosynthesis only occurs in the stem

• Most are homosporous

• Small free living gametophytes

• Motile sperm that needs water

• Whisk ferns:

• Rootless, leafless sporophytes

• Sporangia on tips of the stems

• Tiny colourless gametophyte that is often symbiotic with fungi

• Vascular tissue is produced in some gametophytes