Embryophytes
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Embryophytes
The Embryophyta (), or land plants, are the most familiar group of green plants that comprise vegetation on Earth. Embryophytes () have a common ancestor with green algae, having emerged within the Phragmoplastophyta clade of green algae as sister of the Zygnematophyceae. The Embryophyta consist of the bryophytes plus the polysporangiophytes. Living embryophytes therefore include hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants. The land plants have diplobiontic life cycles and it is accepted now that they emerged from freshwater, multi-celled algae. The embryophytes are informally called land plants because they live primarily in terrestrial habitats (with exceptional members who evolved to live once again in aquatic habitats), while the related green algae are primarily aquatic. Embryophytes are complex multicellular eukaryotes with specialized reproductive organs. The name derives from their innovative characteristic of nurturing the young ...
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Plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin name for "green plants") which is sister of the Glaucophyta, and consists of the green algae and Embryophyta (land plants). The latter includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, and mosses. Most plants are multicellular organisms. Green plants obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts that are derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic or mycotrophic and have lost the ...
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Pteridophyta
A pteridophyte is a vascular plant (with xylem and phloem) that disperses spores. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are sometimes referred to as "cryptogams", meaning that their means of reproduction is hidden. Ferns, horsetails (often treated as ferns), and lycophytes (clubmosses, spikemosses, and quillworts) are all pteridophytes. However, they do not form a monophyletic group because ferns (and horsetails) are more closely related to seed plants than to lycophytes. "Pteridophyta" is thus no longer a widely accepted taxon, but the term ''pteridophyte'' remains in common parlance, as do ''pteridology'' and ''pteridologist'' as a science and its practitioner, respectively. Ferns and lycophytes share a life cycle and are often collectively treated or studied, for example by the International Association of Pteridologists and the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group. Description Pteridophytes (ferns and lycophytes) are free-sporing vascular plants that have a lif ...
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Phragmoplastophyta
The Phragmoplastophyta (Lecointre & Guyader 2006) are a proposed sister clade of the Klebsormidiaceae in the Streptophyte/Charophyte clade. The Phragmoplastophyta consist of the Charophycaea and another unnamed clade which contains the Coleochaetophyceae, Zygnematophyceae, Mesotaeniaceae, and Embryophytes (land plants). It is an important step in the emergence of land plants within the green algae. It is equivalent to the ZCC clade/grade, cladistically granting the Embryophyta. The mitosis of Phragmoplastophyta takes place via a phragmoplast. Another synapomorphy In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to hav ... of this clade is the synthesis of cellulose microfibrils by a complex of octameric cellulose synthetases. This complex crosses the plasma membrane and polymerizes mole ...
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Hornwort
Hornworts are a group of non-vascular Embryophytes (land plants) constituting the division Anthocerotophyta (). The common name refers to the elongated horn-like structure, which is the sporophyte. As in mosses and liverworts, hornworts have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information; the flattened, green plant body of a hornwort is the gametophyte stage of the plant. Hornworts may be found worldwide, though they tend to grow only in places that are damp or humid. Some species grow in large numbers as tiny weeds in the soil of gardens and cultivated fields. Large tropical and sub-tropical species of ''Dendroceros'' may be found growing on the bark of trees. The total number of species is still uncertain. While there are more than 300 published species names, the actual number could be as low as 100-150 species. Description Like all bryophytes, the dominant life phase of a hornwort is the haploid gametophyte. ...
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Gnetophyta
Gnetophyta () is a division of plants (alternatively considered the subclass Gnetidae or order Gnetales), grouped within the gymnosperms (which also includes conifers, cycads, and ginkgos), that consists of some 70 species across the three relict genera: ''Gnetum'' (family Gnetaceae), ''Welwitschia'' (family Welwitschiaceae), and ''Ephedra'' (family Ephedraceae). Fossilized pollen attributed to a close relative of ''Ephedra'' has been dated as far back as the Early Cretaceous. Though diverse in the Early Cretaceous, only three families, each containing a single genus, are still alive today. The primary difference between gnetophytes and other gymnosperms is the presence of vessel elements, a system of conduits that transport water within the plant, similar to those found in flowering plants. Because of this, gnetophytes were once thought to be the closest gymnosperm relatives to flowering plants, but more recent molecular studies have brought this hypothesis into question. Thou ...
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Vegetation
Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader than the term ''flora'' which refers to species composition. Perhaps the closest synonym is plant community, but ''vegetation'' can, and often does, refer to a wider range of spatial scales than that term does, including scales as large as the global. Primeval redwood forests, coastal mangrove stands, sphagnum bogs, desert soil crusts, roadside weed patches, wheat fields, cultivated gardens and lawns; all are encompassed by the term ''vegetation''. The vegetation type is defined by characteristic dominant species, or a common aspect of the assemblage, such as an elevation range or environmental commonality. The contemporary use of ''vegetation'' approximates that of ecologist Frederic Clements' term earth cover, a ...
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Lynn Margulis
Lynn Margulis (born Lynn Petra Alexander; March 5, 1938 – November 22, 2011) was an American evolutionary biologist, and was the primary modern proponent for the significance of symbiosis in evolution. Historian Jan Sapp has said that "Lynn Margulis's name is as synonymous with symbiosis as Charles Darwin's is with evolution." In particular, Margulis transformed and fundamentally framed current understanding of the evolution of cells with nuclei – an event Ernst Mayr called "perhaps the most important and dramatic event in the history of life" – by proposing it to have been the result of symbiotic mergers of bacteria. Margulis was also the co-developer of the Gaia hypothesis with the British chemist James Lovelock, proposing that the Earth functions as a single self-regulating system, and was the principal defender and promulgator of the five kingdom classification of Robert Whittaker. Throughout her career, Margulis' work could arouse intense objection (one grant applic ...
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Arthur Cronquist
Arthur John Cronquist (March 19, 1919 – March 22, 1992) was an American biologist, botanist and a specialist on Compositae. He is considered one of the most influential botanists of the 20th century, largely due to his formulation of the Cronquist system as well as being the primary co-author to the Flora of the Pacific Northwest, still the most up to date flora for three northwest U.S. States to date. Two plant genera in the aster family have been named in his honor. These are ''Cronquistia'', a possible synonym of '' Carphochaete'', and ''Cronquistianthus'', which is sometimes included as a group within ''Eupatorium''. The former was applied by R.M. King and the latter by him and Harold E. Robinson. Life Arthur Cronquist was born on March 19, 1919, in San Jose, California, but he grew up outside of Portland, Oregon, as well as in Pocatello, Idaho. His parents divorced when he was young and he and his older sister were brought up by his mother, who worked for the Union ...
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Takhtajan
Armen Leonovich Takhtajan or Takhtajian ( hy, Արմեն Լևոնի Թախտաջյան; russian: Армен Леонович Тахтаджян; surname also transliterated Takhtadjan, Takhtadzhi︠a︡n or Takhtadzhian, pronounced takh-tuh-JAHN; 10 June 1910 – 13 November 2009), was a Soviet-Armenian botanist, one of the most important figures in 20th century plant evolution and systematics and biogeography. His other interests included morphology of flowering plants, paleobotany, and the flora of the Caucasus. He was one of the most influential taxonomists of the latter twentieth century. Life Family Takhtajan was born in Shushi, Russian Empire, present-day disputed Nagorno-Karabakh, on 10 June 1910, to a family of Armenian intellectuals. His grandfather Meliksan Takhtadzhyan Petrovich had been born in Trabzon, Ottoman Empire and was educated in Italy, on the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni, an Armenian enclave, spoke many languages and worked as a journalist. He ...
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Werner Rothmaler
Werner Walter Hugo Paul Rothmaler (born 20 August 1908 in Sangerhausen, died 13 April 1962 in Leipzig) was a German botanist and from 1953 until 1962 head of the Institute for Agricultural Biology of the University of Greifswald. His areas of expertise included plant geography and systematics. Career Rothmaler's secondary schooling took place in Weimar at the Wilhelm-Ernst-Gymnasium. His wide interests ranged from botany to painting and politics. He became friendly with the family of the artist Lyonel Feininger and particularly with his son Andreas, and he was inspired by the ideas of the Bauhaus. All this brought him into conflict with the school authorities and he left the school without his abitur. Kreisel, Hanns (1999) "Wir nannten ihn Vadder". – Werner Rothmaler – ein außergewöhnlicher Hochschullehrer 1908–1962. ''Greifswalder Universitätsreden'', Neue Folge Nr. 90. Greifswald 1999, (Abdruck eines Vortrages aus Anlass des 90. Geburtstages von Werner Rothmaler) From 19 ...
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Fred Alexander Barkley
Fred Alexander Barkley (1908–1989) was an American botanist. Barkley studied at the University of Oklahoma and was awarded a PhD from the Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ... in 1937. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Barkley, Fred Alexander 1908 births 1989 deaths 20th-century American botanists University of Oklahoma alumni Washington University in St. Louis alumni ...
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Stephan Endlicher
Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher also known as Endlicher István László (24 June 1804, Bratislava (Pozsony) – 28 March 1849, Vienna) was an Austrian botanist, numismatist and Sinologist. He was a director of the Botanical Garden of Vienna. Biography Endlicher studied theology and received minor orders. In 1828 he was appointed to the Austrian National Library to reorganize its manuscript collection. Concurrently he studied natural history, in particular botany, and East-Asian languages. In 1836, Endlicher was appointed keeper of the court cabinet of natural history, and in 1840 he became professor at the University of Vienna and director of its Botanical Garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an .... He wrote a comprehensive description of the plant kingdom accordin ...
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