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The Marchantiophyta (/ m ɑːr ˌ k æ n t i ˈ ɒ f ə t ə,-oʊ ˈ f aɪ t ə / ⓘ) are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts.Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information.
An example of moss (Bryophyta) on the forest floor in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Bryophytes (/ ˈ b r aɪ. ə ˌ f aɪ t s /) [2] are a group of land plants (embryophytes), sometimes treated as a taxonomic division, that contains three groups of non-vascular land plants: the liverworts, hornworts, and mosses (Bryophyta sensu lato). [3]
Marchantia polymorpha grows on shaded moist soil and rocks in damp habitats such as the banks of streams and pools, bogs, fens and dune slacks. [1] While most varieties grow on moist substrates, Marchantia polymorpha var. aquatica is semi-aquatic and is often found invading marshes, as well as small ponds that do not have a consistent water table.
Many club-moss gametophytes are mycoheterotrophic and long-lived, residing underground for several years before emerging from the ground and progressing to the sporophyte stage. [4] Lycopodiaceae and spikemosses (Selaginella) are the only vascular plants with biflagellate sperm, an ancestral trait in land plants otherwise only seen in bryophytes.
The lycophytes, when broadly circumscribed, are a group of vascular plants that include the clubmosses.They are sometimes placed in a division Lycopodiophyta or Lycophyta or in a subdivision Lycopodiophytina.
Liverworts (Hepaticae) are non-vascular plants with a bryophyte life cycle in which the gametophyte is the dominant generation. The study of mosses and liverworts is called bryology . The main article for this category is Marchantiophyta .
The pseudo-elaters are multi-cellular, unlike the elaters of liverworts. They have helical thickenings that change shape in response to drying out; they twist and thereby help to disperse the spores. Hornwort spores are relatively large for bryophytes, measuring between 30 and 80 μm in diameter or more.
From a distance, Takakia looks like a typical layer of moss or green algae on the rock where it grows. On closer inspection, tiny shoots of Takakia grow from a turf of slender, creeping rhizomes . The green shoots which grow up from the turf are seldom taller than 1 cm, and bear an irregular arrangement of short, finger-like leaves (1 mm long).