Seedless Plants

Chapter 12 Section 2
Objectives:
• List 3 nonvascular plants and 3 seedless plants

• Explain how seedless plants are important to the

environment

• Describe the relationship between seedless

vascular plants and coal
Is that a fact!!

• Photographers (in the old days) created an

explosive flash of light with powder.

• The powder contained spores from club mosses

(seedless vascular plants)
2 Groups of Plants That Do Not Make
Seeds:

• Nonvascular plants: mosses, liverworts, and

hornworts

• Vascular plants: ferns, horsetails, and club

mosses
1. Nonvascular Plants:

• Are small

• Grow on soil, bark of trees, and rocks

• Live in places that are damp

• Do not have true stems, roots, or leaves

Mosses -
• Live together in large groups

• Cover soil or rocks with a “mat”

• Have leafy stalks and rhizoids (root-like structure

that holds these plants in place)

• Rhizoids help the plants get water & nutrients

• 2 stages to their life cycle (sporophyte/gametophyte)

 Mosses -

http://www.science-art.com/gallery/47/47_6292006204817.jpg
Liverworts & Hornworts -
• Also are small

• Live in damp places

• Similar life cycle:

▫ Gametophytes of liverworts can be leafy & moss-
like or broad & flattened
▫ Gametophytes of hornworts are broad and
flattened
▫ Both have rhizoids
 Liverworts & Hornworts -

http://www.biology-blog.com/images/blogs/10-2006/plants-cycle-561.jpg
The Importance of Nonvascular Plants
• Usually the 1st plants to live in a new
environment (ex: newly exposed rock)

• They form a thin layer of soil after they die

(reduces soil erosion)

• Animals eat or nest in them (habitat, food)

• Peat mosses: useful to humans (fuel, potting

soil)
2. Seedless Vascular Plants:

• Larger than nonvascular plants

• Include ferns, horsetails, and club mosses

• Have specialized vascular tissue

Ferns -
• Grow in a variety of places (cold to warm)

• Small or large

• Rhizome: an underground stem from which

new leaves and roots grow

• Leaves: fronds coil (fiddleheads)

Ferns -
• Sporophyte: leafy fern
• Gametophyte: tiny; about the size of your
fingernail (green and flat – shaped like a heart)

http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/images/130/Ferns/Sporophyte_images/Fern_labeled_MC_.jpg
 Ferns – life cycle

http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/59/72159-035-14F9199A.jpg
Horsetails & Club Mosses -
• Horsetails:
▫ Grow in wet marshy places
▫ Stems are hollow and contain silica (gritty texture)
– scouring rushes
▫ Similar life cycles to ferns
• Club Mosses:
▫ Grow in woodlands
▫ Not actually mosses – have vascular tissue
▫ Life cycle similar to ferns
 Horsetails -

http://www.sdnhm.org/valentien/plantportraits/samples/03-35_horsetail250x400_ol.jpg
 Club Mosses -

http://www.uwsp.edu/biology/courses/botlab/images/Lab22Ferns/22IB1a.JPG
Importance of Seedless Vascular
Plants:
• Help form soil
• Help prevent soil erosion
• Formation of communities
• Popular house plants
• Some are edible
• Shampoos, dietary supplements, skin-care
products…
• Remains of ancient seedless vascular plants
formed coal
Quick Quiz:

• What is the difference between a rhizoid and a

rhizome?

• Describe the environmental importance of

mosses, liverworts, and hornworts.