Can u make difference between bryophytes and pteridophytes in table ?

Question

Can u make difference between bryophytes and pteridophytes in table ?

Answer 1

Like other land plants, the Bryophytes:-  

have multicellular s*x organs, i.e. the gametes are enclosed by a sterile jacket of cells

are parenchymatous, not filamentous

retain the zygote within the female s*x organ and allow it to develop into an embryo there

have cutin (a cuticle) on the plant and spores



  

Bryophytes, in contrast,  

have no lignin usually

are small, low-lying, (generally) moisture-loving plants

have no roots, only filamentous rhizoids



There are 3 groups of Bryophytes;-  

Mosses   (~10,000 species)  

  

Liverworts  

Leafy liverworts      (4,000-6,000 species) - predominately tropical and poorly covered in most texts  

Thallose liverworts  (~3,500 species) - these are further sub-divided into simple and complex thalloids  

  

Hornworts  

Pteridophyte to refer to non-seed vascular plants, i.e. plants with xylem and phloem whose dispersal relies on spores not seeds. (Be aware that some people use this term just to refer to ferns.)  

The Bryophytes are a group of simple land plants which in many ways are an evolutionary dead end. They probably evolved from the green algae at about the same time as the first vascular plants. Like them they are "Embryophytes" with multicellular s*x organs but they do not have vascular tissue like Rhynia and its relatives.  

The first vascular plants rapidly diversified to cover the earth. The sporophyte was the dominant phase of the life cycle of these early Pteridophytes. Unlike the Bryophytes, these plants are in the mainstream of land plant evolution and eventually gave rise to the seed plants.  

Ferns Club mosses Spike mosses Horsetails

    

This is a giant Caribbean tree fern, Cyathea arborea but most ferns are small herbs.  

The ferns are largely tropical and represent 97% of living Pteridophytes.  

  



This is Lycopodium cernuum, a Caribbean club moss.  

Most of this group is extinct. Lycopodium is the sole surviving genus.

This is Selaginella serpens, a Caribbean spike moss. Selaginella & Lycopodium are similar & some people call both club mosses!  

Selaginella is the sole surviving genus of this group.

This is the top portion with spore-bearing cone of a horsetail, Equisetum sp.  

There are no horsetails in the Caribbean.



  

In all Pteridophytes the dominant plant is the sporophyte (brown below) with the gametophyte (blue below) short-lived.



This fern life cycle is representative of all Pteridophytes.





Unlike the ferns, which are a highly successful, flourishing group, the fern allies (as we call the other Pteridophytes) are virtually living fossils. Most of their relatives have long since become extinct.  

Before we look at the existing ferns and fern allies you should realize how important and common these plants once were.