Transcript Vascular Plants Whisk Ferns, Club Mosses, and Horsetails

By: James Rowley
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Also known as:
◦ Tracheophytes
◦ Higher Plants
93% of all plant species are Vascular
Which means the have true roots, stems, and
leaves
Two Main Tubes
◦ Xylem
 Allows movement of water and nutrients up towards shoots and
leaves
 Water and minerals come in through the fine hair in the roots
◦ Phloem
 Primarily used for transportation of glucose and starch
throughout the plant
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General Characteristics
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They do don’t produce seeds
Dispersed by windblown spore
Gametophyte and Sporophyte are independent
Sperm is flagellated and require water for
reproduction
Three Types
◦ Whisk Fern
◦ Club Moss
◦ Horsetails
Seedless Plants Uniqueness
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Rhizomes
◦ Are root like
◦ Anchors the plant
◦ Absorbs nutrients
 Through filaments called rhizoids
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Epiphytes
◦ Plants that grows on other plants and/or other
objects
◦ Gain nutrients and moisture from air and rain
Above is a picture of a Rhizoid growing
from a node in the Rhizome
General Reproduction of
Seedless Plants
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Starts in Sporophyte Stage
◦ Longest Stage
◦ Sporangium makes the spores
 Through meiosis
◦ All spores are homosporous
 Meaning same
◦ These spores turn in to gametophytes
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Gametophyte Stage
◦ Both spores end up being haploid
◦ NEED water for reproduction
 For sperm to swim from the antheridium to the archegonium
◦ When mature they produce either male or female gametes
through mitosis
◦ When male and female fuse they become a diploid zygote,
starting the Sporophyte stage over
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3 species
◦ Psilotum Nudum
◦ Psilotum Complantum
 Hybrid
 Psilotum intermedium
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Whisk Ferns like warm weather
◦ Tropics
◦ Subtropics
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Native to:
◦ United States
 Found from Oklahoma to North Carolina
 In dry rocky cliffs to swamplands
 Also forming clumps in cracks of trees
◦ New Zealand
◦ Japan
◦ Australia
Whisk Fern
Reproduction
Whisk Ferns Facts
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One of the only surviving members of ancient
family of vascular plants
Said to be the most primitive vascular plant
alive today
The name Whisk Fern is misleading
◦ Not actual part of Fern Family
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Around 375 species
Flowerless and
seedless
Belong to group
called Lycophyta
Perennial herbs
Homosporous
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Cosmopolitan
◦ Artic to Tropics
 Terrestrial in wooded areas
 Epiphytes in Tropical
 Usually on tops of trees
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Minnesota Natives
◦ Also called Christmas-green Plant
 Used for Christmas Decorations
 Spores collected and used at drug stores
 Maintain dryness so used for chaffing
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Many produce spore that are sulphur colored
◦ These are highly flammable
◦ Once used for photography and fireworks
◦ Also used to coat pills in pharmacies
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Cottage sprung up in North America
◦ Used for making wreaths
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Spore were also used by Paleocologists
◦ Used to calibrate number of spores in lake mud
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“Living Fossil”
◦ Only know genus of
Equisetopsida
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Some were large
trees over 30
meters tall!!
Name =
◦ Horse Bristle
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Near-Cosmopolitan
◦ Not found in Antarctica
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Perennial Plants
◦ Herbaceous in Temperate
Regions
◦ Evergreen in Tropical
Regions
◦ Some grow to be 8
meters tall!
 This is the Mexican Giant
Horsetail
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Preferences
◦ Wet sand soil
◦ Some semi-aquatic
◦ Others adapted to wet clay soil
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Field horsetail
◦ Nuisance weed
◦ Fast Growing
◦ Unaffected by many herbicides for seed plants
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Not quite!
◦ Poisonous in large amounts to grazing animals
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However!
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Young strobili eaten in Japan!
Similar to asparagus called tsukushi
Also ancient Rome ate them and used them for tea
Indians used for polishing tools
Today
◦ Leaves used for dye
 Soft green
◦ Used for silica supplements
◦ Also an anti-oxidant
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Very reduced leaves
◦ Grow in whorls
◦ Fused to nodal
◦ Little photosynthesis occurs
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Stems
◦ Photosynthetic
◦ Hallow
◦ Jointed and ridged
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Spores
◦ Come from sporangiophores in strobili
◦ Strobili is cone-like
 Some at tips of the stems
◦ Strobili are not photosynthetic
◦ Most are homosporous
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Cell walls
◦ Contain mixed-linkage glucan: xyloglucan
endotransglucosylase (MXE) activity
 Not known to occur in any other plants
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http://www.phloem.org/
http://www.washjeff.edu/greenhouse/Pnudum/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphyte
http://www.springerlink.com/content/v61355p37571593
2/
http://www.botany.wisc.edu/courses/botany_401/pdf/40
1_03Crypto.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?id=kLPPAAAAMAAJ&pg=P
A156&lpg=PA156&dq=club+mosses+in+Minnesota&sour
ce=bl&ots=Z89yq6g1w1&sig=veKCwG7lGT9qvMrB2GrY1s
R89q8&hl=en&ei=Q6XwS61HpW2NraNlN8P&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnu
m=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=club%20mosses
%20in%20Minnesota&f=false
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsetails