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The Differences Between Vascular And Nonvascular Plants

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Land plants can be divided into three different groups. One of these groups are nonvascular plants which include liverworts, hornworts, and mosses. The other two which are the focus of this paper are vascular seedless plants and vascular seed plants. The difference between vascular and nonvascular plants is that vascular plants have vascular tissue which enables them to grow up and be bigger than nonvascular plants. The difference between seed and seedless vascular plants is the presence of a seed. A seed is defined by the 10th Edition of Campbell Biology as “an adaption of some terrestrial plants consisting of an embryo packaged along with a store of food within a protective coat.” This includes anything from apple seeds to dandelion seeds. The absence or presence of a seed changes how a plant reproduces and also leads to different advantages and disadvantages to the plant. Seedless vascular plants include such plants as ferns, horsetails, club mosses, and whisk ferns. They live in wet environments because they require water for reproduction. They reproduce through the use of spores. Using ferns as an example the spores are found on the underside of the leaves. They are found in cases called sori and each sorus holds many spores which are haploid. Spores are released and they form gametophytes. Gametophytes make gametes which are also haploid and both the egg and the sperm of the fern are created in the gametophyte, but in different parts. The egg is made in the

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