This document summarizes key information about plant structures and classifications. It begins by identifying the four main characteristics shared by all plants: they perform photosynthesis, have a cuticle layer, cell walls, and alternation of generations. It then describes the four major groups of plants as nonvascular plants, vascular plants, seed plants, and flowering plants. The document provides examples and explains the structures, functions, and importance of roots, stems, leaves, and flowers. It also distinguishes between gymnosperms and angiosperms.

2. Bellringer
There are four major types of plants. Identify the
types and give at least two examples of each.

3. Objectives
 Identify four characteristics that all plants share.
 Describe the four main groups of plants.

4. Characteristics of Plants
 Plants use energy from sunlight to make food from
carbon dioxide and water. This process is called
photosynthesis.
 A cuticle is a waxy layer that coats most of the
surfaces of plants that are exposed to air.

5. Characteristics of Plants
 Plant cells are surrounded by a rigid cell wall.
 Plants have two stages in their life cycle— the
sporophyte stage and the gametophyte stage.

7. Plant Classification
 A nonvascular plant is a plant that doesn’t have
specialized tissues to move water and nutrients
through the plant. They depend on diffusion.
 A plant that has tissues to deliver water and
nutrients from one part of the plant to another is
called a vascular plant.

9. Think/Pair/Share
 What are the four characteristics that all plants share?
 How is a plant’s size dependent on its ability to
transport water and nutrients?

10. Bellringer
 If plants can make their own food, why do people
add fertilizer to the soil?

11. Objectives
 List three nonvascular plants and three seedless
vascular plants.
 Explain how seedless plants are important to the
environment.
 Describe the relationship between seedless
vascular plants and coal.

12. Nonvascular Plants
 Mosses often live together in large groups. They
cover soil or rocks with a mat of tiny green plants.
 Like mosses, liverworts and hornworts are usually
small, nonvascular plants that usually live in damp
places.

13. Importance of Nonvascular Plants
 Nonvascular plants are usually the first plants to
live in a new environment, such as newly exposed
rock.
 When these nonvascular plants die, they form a
thin layer of soil.

14. Importance of
Seedless Vascular Plants
 Ferns, horsetails, and club mosses help form soil.
They also help prevent soil erosion.
 Some ferns and horsetails can be eaten. Horsetails
are used in dietary supplements, shampoos, and
skin-care products.
 The remains of ferns, horsetails, and club mosses
that lived and died 300 million years ago formed
coal. Humans rely on coal for energy.

15. Think/Pair/Share
 What do nonvascular plants do for the environment?
 List six kinds of seedless plants.
 What is the relationship between coal and seedless
vascular plants?

16. Bellringer
 If plants cannot move, how do they disperse their
seeds?

17. Objectives
 Describe three ways that seed plants differ from
seedless plants.
 Describe the structure of seeds.
 Compare angiosperms and gymnosperms.
 Explain the economic and environmental
importance of gymnosperms and angiosperms..

18. Characteristics of Seed Plants
 Seed plants differ from seedless plants in the
following ways:
 Seed plants produce seeds.
 The sperm of seed plants do not need water to
reach an egg. Instead they form inside pollen.

19. Parts of a Seed
 A seed is made up of three parts.
 The first part is a young plant, or the sporophyte.
 The second part is stored food.
 Finally, a seed coat surrounds and protects the young
plant.

21. Advantages of Having a Seed
 When a seed begins to grow, the sporophyte uses the food
stored in the seed.
 Seeds can be spread by animals. The spores of seedless
plants are normally spread by wind.
 Animals spread seeds more efficiently than the wind.

22. Gymnosperms
 Seed plants that do not have flowers or fruit are called
gymnosperms.
 The four groups are
 Conifers
 Cycads
 Ginkgoes
 Gnetophytes

23. Importance of Gymnosperms
 Conifers are the most economically important
gymnosperms. People use conifer wood for
building materials and paper products.
 Resin, a sticky fluid produced by pine trees, is
used to make soap, turpentine, paint, and ink.

24. Angiosperms
 Angiosperms are vascular plants that produce
flowers and fruit.
 Flowers help angiosperms reproduce. Flowers
attract animals that help spread pollen.
 Fruits surround and protect the seeds. These fruits
help angiosperms distribute their seeds.

25. Classifying Angiosperms
 Angiosperms are divided into two classes—
monocots and dicots.

26. Importance of Angiosperms
 Flowering plants provide many land animals with
the food they need to survive.
 People use flowering plants in many ways. Major
food crops, such as corn, wheat, and rice, are
flowering plants.
 Flowering plants are used to make cloth
fibers, rope, medicines, rubber, perfume oil, and
building materials.

27. Think/Pair/Share
 Compare angiosperms and gymnosperms.
 What are the three parts of the seed?

28. Bellringer
 Why do cactuses have spines?

29. Objectives
 List three functions of roots and three functions of
stems.
 Describe the structure of a leaf.
 Identify the parts of a flower and their functions.

30. Vascular Tissue
 There are two types of vascular tissue in plants:
 Xylem is the type of tissue in vascular plants that
provides support and conducts water and nutrients from
the roots.
 Phloem is the tissue that conducts food in vascular
plants.

31. Roots..
 Supply plants with water and dissolved minerals.
 Hold plants securely in the soil.
 Store surplus food made during photosynthesis.

32. Structure of a Root
 The layers of cells that cover the surface of the roots is
called the epidermis.
 After water and minerals are absorbed by the
epidermis, they diffuse into the center of the root where the
vascular tissue is located.
 A root cap can be found at the end of the root. The root
cap protects the tip and helps the root continue to grow.

34. Root Systems
• There are two kinds of root systems— taproot systems and
fibrous root systems.
• Taproot systems have a main root, or tap root, that grows
downward. Dicots and gymnosperms usually have tap root
systems.
• Fibrous systems have several roots that spread out from
the base of the stem. Monocots usually have fibrous root
systems.

35. Stem Functions
 A stem connects a plant’s roots to its leaves and flowers. A
stem also has the following functions:
 Stems support the plant body.
 Stems transport materials between the root system and
the shoot system.
 Some stems store materials.

36. Herbaceous Stems
 Many plants have stems that are soft, thin, and flexible.
These stems are called herbaceous stems.

37. Leaves
 The main function of leaves is to make food for the plant.
 The structure of leaves, shown on the next slide, is related
to their main function— photosynthesis.

39. Leaf Adaptations
 Some leaves have functions other than photosynthesis.
 The leaves of many cactuses are modified as spines.
These spines keep animals from eating the cactuses.
 The leaves of sundews are modified to catch
insects, which the sundew digests.

40. Flowers
 Flowers are adaptations for sexual reproduction.
 The modified leaves that make up the outermost ring of
flower parts and protect the bud are called sepals. They
are often green like the other leaves.
 Petals are broad, flat, thin leaflike parts of a flower. Petals
attract animals and insects to the flower.

41.  The male reproductive structure of a flower is called a
stamen.
 A pistil is the female reproductive structure of a flower.

43. Importance of Flowers
 Flowers help plants reproduce.
 Humans use flowers for arrangement. Flowers are also
used to make spices, perfumes, and lotions.
 Broccoli, cauliflower, and artichokes are flowers that
people eat. Chamomile and hibiscus flowers are used to
make tea.

44. Think/Pair/Share
 Compare xylem and phloem.
 What are the two types of roots?
 What are the different parts of a flower?

45. Works Cited
 All images and content were taken from
Holt, Rinehart, and Winston materials.