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Green algae and the organisms we call land plants are assigned to a single clade; that is, a natural grouping based on the belief that they have all evolved from a common ancestor more recent than any shared with other organisms.
Among the criteria for doing this are:
We shall examine here a selection of the most prominent groups.
These green algae are an important source of food for many aquatic animals. When lakes and ponds are "fertilized" with phosphates and nitrates (e.g., from sewage and the runoff from fertilized fields and lawns), green algae often form extensive algal "blooms".
As you can see above, stoneworts (genus Chara) are very plant-like in appearance. They have an erect stem with many branches and rhizoids that anchor them to the substrate (mud or sand in shallow water). Not only do the charophytes look like plants but they have several cellular features more plant-like than those of other green algae. These include their method of cell division, the presence of plasmodesmata, and many small chloroplasts (the cells of other green algae contain only a single large chloroplast).
So today's charophytes appear to be the little-changed descendants of an aquatic green algal ancestor that also went on to evolve into the first land plants some 450 million years ago. So all the land plants to be discussed on the rest of this page also belong to the streptophyta.
These are fairly simple plants made from a number of differentiated cell types and whose fertilized egg develops into a distinct embryo.
However, they have neitherSome 18,000 living species are known. Most grow in moist places.
| Link to an illustrated discussion of mosses. |
Prominent members of this group are often called club mosses. They are not mosses at all, but vascular plants with xylem and phloem running through their roots, stems, and leaves. The leaves are quite simple and small with their vascular tissue in a single, unbranched vein.
The "club" of their name comes from the appearance of their spore-forming structures called strobili.
Club mosses are also sometimes called "ground pines", but they are not pines either. The photo shows Lycopodium obscurum.
Some 1,225 species of lycopsids exist today. All are small (those in the photo stand about 8 in. [20 cm] tall), but it was not always so. Fossil lycopsids in the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian periods (the so-called Carboniferous era) reached heights of 100 feet (30 meters). Their remains contributed to the formation of coal.
Chloroplasts (as well as mitochondria) have their own genome.
| Link to discussion of the reason for this. |
The diagram (based on the work of Ohyama, K. et al., Nature 322:572, 1986 and Linda A. Raubeson and R. K. Jansen, Science 225:1697, 1992) shows the genome of the first chloroplast DNA to be sequenced, that of the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. It contains 121,024 base pairs encoding 128 genes. The short lines indicate a few of the tRNA genes, some of which are labeled.
The order of the genes between the arrows (~6:30 to ~10:00) is also found in the lycopsids. But in all other vascular plants, this region is inverted and the order of the genes is precisely reversed. This provides further evidence that the other vascular plants we shall examine below, the
The common name comes from the characteristic pattern of branching: whorls or rings of branchlets arising from an above-ground shoot. The shoot develops each season from an underground stem (rhizome).
Horsetails often grow in sandy places and incorporate silica in their stems. This gives them an abrasive quality which caused them to once be used for cleaning pots and pans, which gave rise to another common name: scouring rush.
Only one genus, Equisetum, containing about 25 species, survives today. However, many other, much larger, species were dominant features of the Carboniferous and, like the early lycopsids, contributed to the formation of coal.
The drawing is of Equisetum palustre, a common horsetail. Spores are formed in the strobilus.
Some 12,000 species of ferns live on earth today. Many of these are found in the tropics where some — the "tree ferns" — may grow to heights of 40 ft (13 m) or more [View]. The ferns of temperate regions are smaller. They are usually found in damp, shady locations. Their stems — called rhizomes — as well as their roots grow underground and are perennial. Their leaves, called fronds, grow up from the rhizome each spring.
| Link to an illustrated discussion of the life cycle of ferns. |
The megaspores were not released from the parent sporophyte. Fertilization took place within the tissue of the parent sporophyte thus freed from dependence on surface water.
However, the necessity for the microspores to be carried from one plant to another in order to reach the female gametophyte robbed them of their value as agents of dispersal. This function was taken over by seeds — dormant, protected, embryo sporophytes.
| Link to a discussion of the alternation of gametophyte and sporophyte generations in plant life cycles. |
The seed ferns, as these plants are called, were among the earliest gymnosperms. Although seed ferns are now extinct, some of their living descendants, the cycads, resemble them closely. Cycads reveal their ancient lineage by the fact that after the microspore reaches the ovule, it liberates a ciliated sperm which, swimming in moisture supplied by the parent sporophyte, reaches the egg. Ginkgos are also gymnosperms that use motile sperm.
These gymnosperms get their name from their cones:
The microspores develop into pollen grains that are carried by the wind to the female cones. Here each germinates into a pollen tube which grows into the tissues of the female cone until it reaches the vicinity of the egg. (In pines, this may take a year.) Then the tube ruptures and a sperm nucleus fuses with the egg to form the zygote.
After fertilization, the zygote develops into a tiny embryo sporophyte plant.There are approximately 630 species of living conifers. They include the
Conifers include the largest and the oldest of all living organisms. One redwood (genus Sequoia) growing in California is almost 400 feet (122 meters) high. Bristlecone pines growing in the mountains of eastern California are more than 4000 years old.
Although most conifers are evergreen, their leaves are modified as "needles", and these reduce snow load and transpiration during the winter in the harsh high-latitude climates [View] where conifers are the dominant species of plants. But by retaining their needles during the winter, conifers are ready to begin photosynthesis immediately upon the return of spring.
Coniferous forests are of great economic importance producing lumber for building and pulp for paper making.
Although there is some evidence that angiosperms first appeared early in the Mesozoic era, it was not until the end of the Mesozoic that angiosperms became the dominant plants of the landscape. That they dominate the earth's flora today is clear: there are 330,000 known species of living angiosperms; the rest of the plant kingdom includes only some 47,700 species.
| Link to an illustrated discussion of the life cycle of angiosperms. |
Monocot traits:
Dicot traits:
Here is a selection of eudicots.
| Family | Examples |
|---|---|
| Anacardiaceae | poison ivy, cashews, pistachios |
| Asteraceae | asters and all the other composite flowers |
| Brassicaceae | cabbage, turnip; Arabidopsis, and other mustards |
| Cactaceae | cacti |
| Cucurbitaceae | squashes |
| Euphorbiaceae | cassava (manioc) |
| Fabaceae | beans and all the other legumes |
| Fagaceae | oaks |
| Linaceae | flax (source of linen) |
| Malvaceae | cotton |
| Oleaceae | olives, ashes, lilacs |
| Rosaceae | roses, apples, peaches, strawberries, almonds |
| Rubiaceae | coffee |
| Rutaceae | oranges and other citrus fruits |
| Solanaceae | potato, tomato, tobacco |
| Theaceae | tea |
| Vitaceae | grapes |
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