Chapter 12.2 Seedless Plants

Nonvascular Plants They are small and often live in damp places. This is because each cell of the plant must be able to get water from the environment or it’s surrounding cells. They don’t have true stems, roots or leaves but they do have structures that carry out the functions of stems, roots and leaves.

Mosses Often live together in large groups. Have leafy stalks and rhizoids A rhizoid is a root like structure that holds nonvascular plants in place. They also help the plants get water and nutrients.

Liverworts and Hornworts Very similar to mosses. Their gametophytes have different shapes than mosses. They are more broad and flat leafed.

Importance of non-vascular plants They are usually the first plants to live in a new environment, such as newly exposed rock. When they die they form a small layer of soil. This allows new plants to grow. Some animals eat nonvascular plants and others use them for nesting material. Peat mosses are used for fuel and sphagnum moss has actually been used during war times to act as dressing for wounds when none was available. (It can hold 20 times it’s own weight in fluid. )

Seedless Vascular Plants Can grow very tall. Ancient ferns, horsetails and club mosses are examples. Ferns once grew up to 8m, horsetails grew up to 18m tall and club mosses grew up to 40 m in ancient forests.

Ferns Grow in many places from the cold Arctic to the warm, humid tropical forest. Most are small but some grow up to 24 m tall. Most have rhizomes, underground stems from which new leaves and roots grow. Leaves and stem are very tightly wound at first looking like a fiddle head.

Horsetails and Club Mosses Modern horsetails grow up to 8m tall, modern Club Mosses grow up to 20 cm tall The Importance of Seedless Vascular Plants They help form new soil Ferns can help form new communities. After lichens and mosses create the first layer of soil ferns take over. Most of these are edible and some are used in dietary supplements, shampoos and skin-care The remains of these plants from about 300 million years ago for the fossil fuels that we mine for a lot of our energy!