Seedless Vascular Plants: An In-depth Look at Horsetails, Ferns, and Clubmosses, Summaries of Plant Taxonomy and Evolution

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Seedless Vascular Plants

Food of the Dinosaurs—Dominant Carboniferous Plants

Horsetails-- Equisetum (^) Ferns Clubmosses-- Lycopodium

Vascular Plants

The Escape from Water

• Lignin (xylem), cutin (cuticle), sporopollenin (spores

and pollen covering)

• Specialized tissues for support, transport, photosynthesis
• Reduced gametophye
• Free-living dominant sporophyte

Azolla is a small aquatic fern with an endosymbiotic cyanobacterium named Anabaena azollae.

Why do rice growers have Azolla in their fields?

Ferns

• Sporophyte Dominant Life cycle
• Fronds—leaves
• Crozier—fiddlehead
• Rhizome—horizontal stem
• Sori

Fern Fertile Fronds

Ostrich Fern (^) Sensitive Fern

Fern Spore

Dispersal

Bracken Fern Poisoning

• Thiaminase in Bracken

Fern degrades Vitamin B

• Cattle & horses
• Ptaquiloside is a

carcinogen in Bracken

• Esophogeal and gastric cancers in Asia
• Possible water pollutant

Photo from www.thenourishinggourmet.com

Ostrich Fern is believed to be a safe edible wild food.

Sensitive Fern Fossils are found across North America, Asia, and Greenland (55 MYA).

Club Mosses-- Lycopodium

• Spirally arranged leaves,

dichotomous branching

• Sporangia in ―cone-like‖

structures

• Gametophytes are

subterranean, long-lived,

and mycorrhizal

• Formerly (300 MYA)

dominant tree-sized

forests plants