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What is a Plant Diversity?

Biology (plant diversity) help?

  • in our book, it claims there are 4 main groups of land plants: bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms, and angiosperms. it says pteridophytes contain the ferns, and that pteridophytes are called "seedless plants" because there is no seed stage in life cycle. then how would u explain the pictures of the seed-like things of ferns when you search for "fern seed" on google images? you might say that these seeds are not in a protective coat or something, but it also says that gymnosperms have seeds without a protective coat, but are still classified as a seed plant. so confused... help much appreciated. thanks

  • Answer:

    It's true that ferns do not have seeds. You realize that anyone can post anything on the Internet and it doesn't have to be true. Likewise, anyone can name a picture whatever they want to name it. A seed has an embryo, a food source, and a seed coat. A fern spore has none of the above. Ferns are non-seed vascular plants. When they say that gymnosperms have naked seeds or seeds without a protective coat, that means that the seeds are not inside fruits. They still have a seed coat, an embryo, and a food source.

Mr.Deeds at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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The seed ferns were a very large and very diverse group of plants that existed from about 400 million years ago to about 75 million years ago. They were not true ferns. The first discovered fossils of this group were only of the leaves. The leaves of the seed ferns were superficially similar to the true ferns of today (i.e., pinnately compound leaves, cercinate vernation). Later, seeds were found attached to these leaves and the group became known as the seed ferns.

thepaleobotanist

Ferns don't really have seeds, but they have a gametophyte stage and a sporophyte stage. What you may be seeing images of is the gametophyte stage. It is MUCH smaller than the sporophyte and hard to see the wild because it is very tiny (depending on the species). Google also isn't the best source of information, as anyone can publish a website on anything. An uneducated person could have taken a picture of a seed and named it "fern seed" and now it appears on google. I personally use www.wikipedia.org for a lot of information, but again, anyone can publish information on there, but false information 'usually' gets corrected. Here is the page on ferns: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fern Hope this was helpful.

Amy Z

No. There are not four main groupings of land plants. There are three main groupings: bryophytes, tracheophytes, and spermatophytes. Did manage to copy and paste a very long and complex breakdown of all the smaller subcategories, such as ferns: Land plants (embryophytes) Non-vascular land plants (bryophytes) Marchantiophyta—liverworts Anthocerotophyta—hornworts Bryophyta—mosses †Horneophytopsida Vascular plants (tracheophytes) †Rhyniophyta—rhyniophytes †Zosterophyllophyta—zosterophylls Lycopodiophyta—clubmosses †Trimerophytophyta—trimerophytes Pteridophyta—ferns and horsetails †Progymnospermophyta Seed plants (spermatophytes) †Pteridospermatophyta—seed ferns Pinophyta—conifers Cycadophyta—cycads Ginkgophyta—ginkgo Gnetophyta—gnetae Magnoliophyta—flowering plants The ones with the cross symbol I believe are extinct but still classified within this particular taxonomic system.

Professor Armitage

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