10T2K: Types of Plants

Thing 1: Vascular vs. nonvascular plants  VASCULAR plants have roots, leaves, and veins for carrying food and water.  NONVASCULAR plants don’t.  Nonvascular plants are simpler and more primitive than vascular plants.

Thing 1a: Xylem and phloem are vascular tissues  Xylem is vascular tissue that transports water and minerals.  Phloem is vascular tissue that transports food made by photosynthesis.

Thing 2: Nonvascular seedless plants  The simplest plants are nonvascular and don’t make seeds.  No roots, leaves, flowers, fruits  MOSS is the most common example of a nonvascular seedless plant.

Thing 3: Vascular seedless plants  Some plants have roots, leaves and veins, but don’t make seeds.  Also no flowers or fruits  FERNS are the most common kind of vascular seedless plant.  Lycopods (“club mosses”) are another group of seedless vascular plants.

Sori on back of fern frond

2 common Virginia lycopods

Thing 4: Gymnosperms are vascular plants with seeds but no flowers or fruits  Some plants are vascular and make seeds, but don’t make flowers or fruit.  CONIFERS (tress with cones) are the most common kind of gymnosperm.  Pine  Hemlock  Spruce  Fir

Virginia pine male and female cones.

Thing 5: Angiosperms are vascular plants with flowers and fruits  The most complex plants are vascular plants that make flowers and fruits.  Most plants are in this category, even grass and most trees.  The word angiosperm means “covered seed”.  The seeds of angiosperms are enclosed in a fruit.

Thing 7: Fruit  Fruits are the swollen ovaries of an angiosperm.  Almost anything with seeds in it other than a cone from a conifer is a fruit.

Red maple flowers (left) and fruit

Thing 8: Flower reproductive parts  Male structure: stamen  Pollen-containing anther at the end of a filament.  Pollen produces the plant’s sperm.  Female structure: pistil  Pollen-collecting stigma connected to the ovary.  The ovary contains the plant’s eggs.

petal: attracts pollinators stamen pistil sepal: protects flower bud and can attract pollinators flower pistilstamen stigma ovary egg anther filament

Thing 9: Pollination  Gymnosperms are pollinated by the wind.  Some angiosperms are pollinated by the wind.  Grasses, many flowering trees  Wind-pollinated flowers do not have petals or showy sepals  Some angiosperms are pollinated by animals.  Animal-pollinated flowers have show petals and/or sepals to attract the pollinators

Wind-pollinated flowers

Thing 10: “Source to sink”  Water moves from the soil into the xylem of the roots, and then to the rest of the plant.  When photosynthesizing, food moves from the leaves (or other green parts) to the phloem, and then to the rest of the plant.  When not photosynthesizing, food moves from where it has been stored (e.g., roots or tubers) into the phloem, and then to the rest of the plant.