small plants living in moist habitats (their sperm must swim
through water to reach their eggs). Reproduce by spores.
Psilophyta
Whiskferns
12
simple vascular plants lacking true roots and, in some species,
leaves. Reproduce by spores.
Sphenophyta or Equisetophyta
Horsetails, scouring rushes
20
primarily found in moist, muddy habitats; stems creeping
underground and producing erect annual or perrenial stems with
tiny leaves whorled into sheaves around stem. Jointed hollow
stems and rough ribbed texture caused by the mineral silica.
Reproduce by spores.
Filicinophyta or Pterydophyta
Ferns
12000
vascular plants which reproduce by spores; stems mostly
creeping, large leaves (megaphylls) with branching veins. The
most complex, diverse and abundant of the plant phyla that do
not produce seeds.
Cycadophyta
Cycads
100
evergreen perrenial shrubs or trees with stems that are
usually unbranched but thickened by some secondary growth.
Palm-like or fern-like compound leaves; they contain symbiotic
cyanobacteria in special roots.
Ginkgophyta
Ginkgo, maidenhair tree
1
native to China but cultivated worldwide, the gingko is a tall
tree with deciduous fan-shaped leaves; the only living
descendant of a once-large group.
Coniferophyta or Pinatae
Conifers
550
by far the most familiar of the gymnosperms (plants having
naked seeds); usually evergreen shrubs or trees with simple
needle-like leaves, spirally arranged. Commercially important
for timber, pulp, turpentine and resin products.
Gnetophyta
Gnetophytes (cone-bearing desert plants)
70
cone-bearing desert plants. Resemble flowering plants in many
ways; were once thought to be link between conifers and
angiosperms.
Angiospermophyta or Magnoliophyta
Angiosperms, flowering plants
>230000
the dominant land vegetation of the Earth, including nearly
every familiar tree, shrub or garden plant that produces
flowers and seeds. Characterised by the aggregation of sexual
reproductive structures with specialized shoots (flowers),
which typically comprise four kinds of modified leaves; sepals,
petals, stamens (male organs) and carpels (female organs).
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