Transcript Nonvascular plants

How are plants
sorted into groups?
CREATED BY DANIELLE RUFF
CARTERSVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
FIFTH GRADE
Nonvascular Plants
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Have you ever seen a rock or log covered with a moist,
velvety green plant?
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What you’ve seen isn’t really one plant, but many tiny moss
plants.
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Mosses are nonvascular plants.
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Nonvascular plants don’t have true roots, but they are
anchored in the ground by small, root-like structures. They
have parts that look like stems, but they aren’t true stems.
And they have small, leaf-like structures that make food. But
they aren’t true leaves because they don’t have veins.
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Nonvascular plants don’t have any tissue for carrying
materials throughout the plant.
Nonvascular Plants
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Nonvascular plants absorb water and
nutrients from their surroundings.

Water in the plants carries food and
nutrients directly from cell to cell.
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Because of this, the plants cannot grow very tall.
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With their small size, they can absorb
enough water to carry materials
throughout the plants.

When there is not enough water, a
nonvascular plant such as moss quickly
dries out and turns brown.

When it rains, many mosses turn green
again.
Vascular Plants

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Trees, like the one shown
here, are more complex
than mosses.
Trees belong to a group
called vascular plants.
Vascular plants have
tissue that supports the
plants and carries water
and food.
Roots, stems, and leaves
all contain vascular tissue.
Vascular Tissue

Xylem carries water and
nutrients from roots to
other parts of a plant.

Phloem carries food from
leaves to the rest of the
plant.
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With these tissues,
vascular plants are not
dependent on water
moving to nearby cells
only, like mosses.
Vascular Plants

Vascular plants vary more
than nonvascular plants.

They include tiny
duckweed and giant
redwood trees.

They also include cacti
that grow in deserts, with
little water, and orchids
that grow in damp rain
forests.
Seed-Bearing Plants

Have you ever seen a pine tree with cones hanging from its
branches?

If so, you were looking at a vascular plant that grew from a seed.
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The cones you saw probably contained seeds.

Seeds enable plants to grown in many environments.
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Unlike seedless plants, seed plants don’t need water for fertilization.
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The seeds of pines are considered “naked” because they are
protected only by a seed coat.
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This is in contrast to seeds that are protected inside a fruit.
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A plant that produces naked seeds is a gymnosperm.
Seed-Bearing Plants

You might have seen male pine cones
covered with yellow pollen.

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Pollen contains sperm.
Female cones are larger and grow high on
tress, above the male cones.
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Ovules grown on the scales of female
cones.
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Ovules contain eggs.
Mature male cones release millions of
pollen grains.

They look like a golden dust cloud as
they’re blown by the wind.

Some pollen settles on ovules.
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Sperm from the pollen fertilize the eggs
and then seeds develop.
Male
Female
Seed-Bearing Plants
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When the seeds are mature, the cone scales separate and the
seeds, which have wings, travel on the wind.
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If a seed lands in a suitable habitat, a new tree begins to grown
then a new life cycle begins
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Gymnosperms are very different from flowering plants, such as
apple trees.
Seed-Bearing Plants
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Seed development is more
complex in angiosperms.
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Their protected seeds have
made it possible for
angiosperms to live in nearly all
parts of the world.
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Apple trees have flowers
instead of cones.
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Flowers produce seeds inside
fruit.
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A flowering plant, which has
seeds protected by a fruit, is
classified as an angiosperm.