If you were to travel back in time 300 million years, you wouldn’t be standing in any kind of forest you’ve ever seen before. In fact, the forests of the Carboniferous period were dominated by nonvascular plants and early vascular plants, known as the seedless vascular plants (e.g., ferns, clubmosses, and more).
We still find these seedless vascular plants today, but now they are overshadowed by their seed-producing counterparts (e.g., conifers, flowering plants, etc.). Unlike their seed-producing counterparts, seedless vascular plants do not produce seeds, but rather have an independent gametophyte generation through the production of spores.
You are viewing: Which Of The Following Is True Of Seedless Vascular Plants
Unlike nonvascular plants, however, seedless vascular plants contain a vascular system that supports them in the transport of water, food, and minerals.
What are seedless vascular plants?
Read more : Which Signal Types Are Represented By A Continuous Waveform
Seedless vascular plants were the early vascular plants, predating the gymnosperms and angiosperms. They were the dominant species in ancient forests, consisting of nonvascular mosses and seedless ferns, horsetails, and club mosses.
Seedless vascular plants: common names and examples
Seedless vascular plants are mainly split into two groups, the lycophytes and the monilophytes. These aren’t common names, however, and might be a little confusing to remember. Below we go over what each of these names means and some examples of seedless vascular plants.
The lycophytes
The lycophytes represent the quillworts, spike mosses, and club mosses. Although these have the word “moss” in them, these are actually not true nonvascular mosses, because they have vascular systems. The lycophytes differ from the monilophytes in that their leaf-like structures are called “microphylls”,meaning “small leaf” in Greek. The “microphylls” are not considered true leaves because they only have a single vein of vascular tissue and the veins are not branched like the “true leaves” that monilophytes have.
Read more : Which Two Gases Make Up Most Of The Atmosphere
Club mosses have cone-like structures called strobili where they produce the spores that will become haploid gametophytes. The quillworts and silver mosses do not have strobili, but instead have spores on their “microphylls”.
The monilophytes
The monilophytes are separated from the lycophytes because they have “euphylls” or true leaves, the plant parts we particularly think of as leaves today. These “euphylls” are broad and have multiple veins running through them. The common names you may recognize of plants in this group are the ferns and the horsetails.
Ferns have broad leaves and spore-bearing structures called sori located underneath their leaves.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHICH
