Vascular plant

? Vascular Plants
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae (in part)
'Divisions'
Non-seed-bearing plants Equisetophyta Lycopodiophyta Psilotophyta Pteridophyta Superdivision Spermatophyta Pinophyta Cycadophyta Ginkgophyta Gnetophyta Magnoliophyta

The vascular plants are plants in the Kingdom Plantae (also called Viridiplantae) that have specialized tissues for conducting water. Vascular plants include the ferns, clubmosses, horsetails, flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms. Scientific names are Tracheophyta and Tracheobionta, but neither is very widely used. Nonvascular plants include both earlier-derived lineages in Plantae (mosses, hornworts, and liverworts) and members of other kingdoms (the various algae).

Vascular plants are named from the latin word vasculum, meaning "vessel" or "duct." The evolution of this vascular tissue allowed for an early dominance of these plants on land (first appearing 430 million years ago during the Silurian period), giving them the ability to transport water and dissolved minerals through specialized strands of elongated cells that run from the plant root to the tips of the leaves.

The vascular plants evolved several important features:

1. Vascular plants have water-carrying tissues, enabling the plants to evolve to a larger size. Non-vascular plants lack these and are restricted to relatively small sizes.
2. In vascular plants, the principal generation phase is the large, dominant, nutritionally-independent sporophyte, which is diploid with two sets of chromosomes per cell. In non-vascular plants, the principal generation phase is often the gametophyte, which is haploid with one set of chromosomes per cell.
3. Specialized leaves, stems and roots
4. Vascular plants have cuticles and stomata to prevent dessication and facilitate gas exchange, respectively.
5. Evolution of seeds.

Water transport happens in either xylem or phloem: the xylem carries water and inorganic solutes upward toward the leaves from the roots, while phloem carries organic solutes throughout the plant.

This article is too short. You might want to take each of the "members" below and expand each into a paragraph. Actually, other than the ferms, I doubt we will have a separate entry for the other spore-bearing vascualar plants. The seed-bearing plants we will probably have. At any rate, can just cut and past content from the Wikipedia article on the first three spore-bearing plants. The other members cannot do that, because we will have separate articles. But one brief paragraph on each and what their characterists are would be helpful in this article, unless you have another way to expand it.

Members

• Spore-bearing vascular plants
  • Equisetophyta ~ horsetails
  • Lycopodiophyta ~ clubmosses, spikemosses, quillworts
  • Psilotophyta ~ whisk-ferns
  • Pteridophyta~ ferns

• Seed-bearing vascular plants - Superdivision Spermatophyta
  • Pinophyta ~ conifers
  • Cycadophyta ~ cycads
  • Ginkgophyta ~ ginkgoes
  • Gnetophyta ~ gnetophytes
  • Magnoliophyta ~ flowering plants

See also

• Plant
• Angiosperm
• Gymnosperm
• Fern allies

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