This document discusses plants, including their characteristics, types, and life cycles. It begins by defining plants and describing some key plant structures. It then separates plants into two main groups: nonvascular and vascular plants. For nonvascular plants, it describes characteristics and provides examples like liverworts and mosses. It explains the alternation of generations life cycle. For vascular plants, it notes the presence of xylem and phloem tissue and describes seedless vascular plant divisions like whisk ferns, club mosses, horsetails and ferns.

1. The Plants
Kyle Guzik

2. Arabidopsis Thaliana

3. The BSLC Greenhouse

4. Genetic Modification with
Green Fluorescent Protiein

5. Kingdom Plantae
• Plants are multicellular eukaryotes with well-
developed tissues.
• Plants live in a wide variety of terrestrial
environments.
• There are also aquatic plants.

6. Water lily of the family
Nymphaeaceae

7. Is this a plant?
• Ascophyllum nodosum
• This is a seaweed of the
northern Atlantic Ocean,
also known as
Norwegian Kelp, Knotted
Kelp, knotted wrack or
egg wrack. It is not a
plant but rather a large
common brown algae.

8. Land vs. Water
• Land existence makes photosynthesis more
effective. Water filters light.
• Carbon dioxide and oxygen are in higher
concentrations and diffuse more rapidly in air.
• Land plants have adaptations to reduce the loss
of water.
• Leaves are covered with a waxy cuticle that holds
in water.
• The leaves have openings know as stomata that
open and close to regulate gas and water
exchange.

9. A Stomatal Complex

10. Relationship to Algae
• Plants are believed to be closely related to
green algae.
• Both use chlorophylls a and b.
• Both use starch as the food reserve.
• The cell walls of both contains cellulose.
• Both form a cell plate during cell division.
• Unlike green algae, plants have sex organs
with an outer layer of reproductive cells.

11. Alternation of Generations
• The sporophyte
generation is a
diploid generation
that produces
haploid spores by
meiotic cell division.
• The gametophyte
generation is a
haploid generation
producing haploid
gametes by mitotic
cell division.

12. Nonvascular plants
• Plants are divided into two main groups: non
vascular and vascular plants

13. Hornworts
• Division Anthocerotophyta

14. Liverworts
• Division Hepatophyta

15. Liverworts
• The division hepatophyta contains 10,000 species
of liverworts.
• This name comes from the liver shaped lobes of
the plant.
• Marchantia, for example has a flat lobed thallus
about a centimeter in length. The upper surface
of the thallus is smooth the lower surface bears
numerous rhizoids projecting into the soil.
• It reproduces sexually and asexually.

16. Liverworts
• Rhizoids are the rootlike hairs that anchor the
bryophytes and absorb water and minerals
from the soil.
• Asexual reproduction involves gemmae in
gemmae cups on the upper surface of the
thallus.

17. Liverworts
• Sexual reproduction depends on antheridia and
archegonia
• Antheridia are on disk-headed stalks and produce
flagellated sperm.
• Archegonia are on umbrella-headed stalks and
produce eggs.
• A Zygote develops into a tiny sporophyte
composed of a foot, short stalk, and capsule.
• Spores produced within the capsule of the
gametophyte are disseminated by the wind.

18. Mosses
• Division Bryophyta
• Interestingly, Spanish Moss is not a bryophyte but
rather a member of Bromeliaceae, the same
family that contains pineapples.

19. Mosses
• There are about 12,000 species of mosses in the
division bryophyta.
• Mosses are found in the Arctic through the
tropics to parts of the Antarctic.
• Moss prefers damp shaded localities; however
some survive in desserts while others live in bogs
and streams.
• Mosses can store large quantities of water in
their cells. When dried out they become
dormant, but turn green again after some rain.

20. Mosses
• Most mosses can reproduce asexually by fragmentation.
• The moss life cycle begins with an algalike protenema developing
from germination of a haploid spore.
• Three days of favorable growing conditions produce uprights shoots
covered with leafy structures.
• Rhizoids anchor the protonema, to which the shoots are attached.
• The shoots bear antheridia and archegonia at their tips.
• Antheridia produce flagellated sperm which need external water to
reach eggs in archegonia.
• Fertilization results in a diploid zygote that undergoes mitotic
division to develop a sporophyte.
• The sporophyte consists of a foot, stalk, and upper capusle
(sporangium) where spores are produced.
• The sporophyte is initially green and photosynthetic; at maturity it
is brown and non-photosynthetic.

21. Nonvascular Plants
• Lack specialized tissues for transporting water,
minerals, and organic nutrients
• They lack true roots, stems, and leaves, although
they have rootlike, stemlike, or leaflike structures.
• The gametophyte is the dominant generation.
• Flagellated sperm swims to the vicinity of the egg
in a continuous film of water.
• The sporophyte is attached to and derives
nourishments form the photosynthetic
gametophyte.

22. Vascular Plants
• Xylem is a vascular
tissue that conducts
water and minerals up
from the soil.
• Phloem is a vascular
tissue that transports
organic nutrients from
one part of the plant to
the other.

23. Organs of Vascular Plants
• Roots absorb water and minerals from the soil
• Stems conduct water and mineral to leaves
and conduct organic nutrients from leaves to
the roots.
• Leaves are adapted to maximize
photosynthetic activity; they are covered by a
waxy cuticle.
• Leaves have openings (stomates) that open
and close to regulate water and gas exchange.

24. Reproduction of Vascular Plants
• The diploid sporophyte generation is
dominant; this is the generation that has
vascular tissue.
• Seedless vascular plants (ferns and their allies)
disperse their species by producing
windblown spores.
• In seed plants there is a separate
microgametophyte (male) and
megagametophyte (female)

25. Whisk ferns (division Psilotophyta)
• Occur in Arizona, Texas,
Louisiana, Florida,
Hawaii, and Puerto Rico
• Have no leaves or roots,
posses a branched
rhizome with rhizoids
and a mycorrhizal fungus
that helps gather
nutrients.
• Aeriel stems with tiny
scales fork repeatedly
and carry on
photosynthesis.

26. Club Mosses (division Lycopodophyta)
• ~ 1,000 species of club
moss
• Tightly packed, scalelike
microphylls cover stems
and branches; each
contains one strand of
vascular tissue.
• Most live in tropics or
subtropics as epiphytes,
plants that live on trees
without harming them.

27. Horsetails (division Equisetophyta)
• A rhizome produces
aerial stems that stand
about 1.3 meters tall.
• Tough, rigid stems have
silica in the cell walls.
• “scouring rush”

28. Ferns (division Pteridophyta,)
• 12,000 species of ferns belong to division
Pterodophyta.