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Lycophyta
The lycophytes, when broadly circumscribed, are a vascular plant (tracheophyte) subgroup of the kingdom Plantae. They are sometimes placed in a division Lycopodiophyta or Lycophyta or in a subdivision Lycopodiophytina. They are one of the oldest lineages of extant (living) vascular plants; the group contains extinct plants that have been dated from the Silurian (ca. 425 million years ago). Lycophytes were some of the dominating plant species of the Carboniferous period, and included tree-like species, although extant lycophytes are relatively small plants. The scientific names and the informal English names used for this group of plants are ambiguous. For example, "Lycopodiophyta" and the shorter "Lycophyta" as well as the informal "lycophyte" may be used to include the extinct zosterophylls or to exclude them. Description Lycophytes reproduce by spores and have alternation of generations in which (like other vascular plants) the sporophyte generation is dominant. Some lycophyte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lycopodiopsida
Lycopodiopsida is a class of vascular plants known as lycopods, lycophytes or other terms including the component lyco-. Members of the class are also called clubmosses, firmosses, spikemosses and quillworts. They have dichotomously branching stems bearing simple leaves called microphylls and reproduce by means of spores borne in sporangia on the sides of the stems at the bases of the leaves. Although living species are small, during the Carboniferous, extinct tree-like forms formed huge forests that dominated the landscape and contributed to coal deposits. The nomenclature and classification of plants with microphylls varies substantially among authors. A consensus classification for extant (living) species was produced in 2016 by the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group (PPG I), which places them all in the class Lycopodiopsida, which includes the classes Isoetopsida and Selaginellopsida used in other systems. (See Table 2.) Alternative classification systems have used ranks fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zosterophyll
The zosterophylls are a group of extinct land plants that first appeared in the Silurian period. The taxon was first established by Banks in 1968 as the subdivision Zosterophyllophytina; they have since also been treated as the division Zosterophyllophyta or Zosterophyta and the class or plesion Zosterophyllopsida or Zosteropsida. They were among the first vascular plants in the fossil record, and had a world-wide distribution. They were probably stem-group lycophytes, forming a sister group to the ancestors of the living lycophytes. By the late Silurian (late Ludlovian, about ) a diverse assemblage of species existed, examples of which have been found fossilised in what is now Bathurst Island in Arctic Canada. Morphology The stems of zosterophylls were either smooth or covered with small spines known as enations, branched dichotomously, and grew at the ends by unrolling, a process known as circinate vernation. The stems had a central vascular column in which the protoxylem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zosterophyll
The zosterophylls are a group of extinct land plants that first appeared in the Silurian period. The taxon was first established by Banks in 1968 as the subdivision Zosterophyllophytina; they have since also been treated as the division Zosterophyllophyta or Zosterophyta and the class or plesion Zosterophyllopsida or Zosteropsida. They were among the first vascular plants in the fossil record, and had a world-wide distribution. They were probably stem-group lycophytes, forming a sister group to the ancestors of the living lycophytes. By the late Silurian (late Ludlovian, about ) a diverse assemblage of species existed, examples of which have been found fossilised in what is now Bathurst Island in Arctic Canada. Morphology The stems of zosterophylls were either smooth or covered with small spines known as enations, branched dichotomously, and grew at the ends by unrolling, a process known as circinate vernation. The stems had a central vascular column in which the protoxylem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zosterophylls
The zosterophylls are a group of extinct land plants that first appeared in the Silurian period. The taxon was first established by Banks in 1968 as the subdivision Zosterophyllophytina; they have since also been treated as the division Zosterophyllophyta or Zosterophyta and the class or plesion Zosterophyllopsida or Zosteropsida. They were among the first vascular plants in the fossil record, and had a world-wide distribution. They were probably stem-group lycophytes, forming a sister group to the ancestors of the living lycophytes. By the late Silurian (late Ludlovian, about ) a diverse assemblage of species existed, examples of which have been found fossilised in what is now Bathurst Island in Arctic Canada. Morphology The stems of zosterophylls were either smooth or covered with small spines known as enations, branched dichotomously, and grew at the ends by unrolling, a process known as circinate vernation. The stems had a central vascular column in which the protoxylem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silurian
The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozoic Era. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the exact dates are uncertain by a few million years. The base of the Silurian is set at a series of major Ordovician–Silurian extinction events when up to 60% of marine genera were wiped out. One important event in this period was the initial establishment of terrestrial life in what is known as the Silurian-Devonian Terrestrial Revolution: vascular plants emerged from more primitive land plants, dikaryan fungi started expanding and diversifying along with glomeromycotan fungi, and three groups of arthropods (myriapods, arachnids and hexapods) became fully terrestrialized. A significant evolutionary milestone during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xylem
Xylem is one of the two types of transport tissue in vascular plants, the other being phloem. The basic function of xylem is to transport water from roots to stems and leaves, but it also transports nutrients. The word ''xylem'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (''xylon''), meaning "wood"; the best-known xylem tissue is wood, though it is found throughout a plant. The term was introduced by Carl Nägeli in 1858. Structure The most distinctive xylem cells are the long tracheary elements that transport water. Tracheids and vessel elements are distinguished by their shape; vessel elements are shorter, and are connected together into long tubes that are called ''vessels''. Xylem also contains two other type of cells: parenchyma and fibers. Xylem can be found: * in vascular bundles, present in non-woody plants and non-woody parts of woody plants * in secondary xylem, laid down by a meristem called the vascular cambium in woody plants * as part of a stelar arrangement n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protostele
In a vascular plant, the stele is the central part of the root or stem containing the tissues derived from the procambium. These include vascular tissue, in some cases ground tissue (pith) and a pericycle, which, if present, defines the outermost boundary of the stele. Outside the stele lies the endodermis, which is the innermost cell layer of the cortex. The concept of the stele was developed in the late 19th century by French botanists P. E. L. van Tieghem and H. Doultion as a model for understanding the relationship between the shoot and root, and for discussing the evolution of vascular plant morphology. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, plant molecular biologists are coming to understand the genetics and developmental pathways that govern tissue patterns in the stele. Moreover, physiologists are examining how the anatomy (sizes and shapes) of different steles affect the function of organs. Protostele The earliest vascular plants had stems with a central core of v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microphyll
In plant anatomy and evolution a microphyll (or lycophyll) is a type of plant leaf with one single, unbranched leaf vein. Plants with microphyll leaves occur early in the fossil record, and few such plants exist today. In the classical concept of a microphyll, the leaf vein emerges from the protostele without leaving a leaf gap. Leaf gaps are small areas above the node of some leaves where there is no vascular tissue, as it has all been diverted to the leaf. Megaphylls, in contrast, have multiple veins within the leaf and leaf gaps above them in the stem. Leaf vasculature The clubmosses and horsetails have microphylls, as in all extant species there is only a single vascular trace in each leaf. These leaves are narrow because the width of the blade is limited by the distance water can efficiently diffuse cell-to-cell from the central vascular strand to the margin of the leaf. Despite their name, microphylls are not always small: those of ''Isoëtes'' can reach 25 centimetres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megaphyll
In plant anatomy and evolution a microphyll (or lycophyll) is a type of plant leaf with one single, unbranched leaf vein. Plants with microphyll leaves occur early in the fossil record, and few such plants exist today. In the classical concept of a microphyll, the leaf vein emerges from the protostele without leaving a leaf gap. Leaf gaps are small areas above the node of some leaves where there is no vascular tissue, as it has all been diverted to the leaf. Megaphylls, in contrast, have multiple veins within the leaf and leaf gaps above them in the stem. Leaf vasculature The clubmosses and horsetails have microphylls, as in all extant species there is only a single vascular trace in each leaf. These leaves are narrow because the width of the blade is limited by the distance water can efficiently diffuse cell-to-cell from the central vascular strand to the margin of the leaf. Despite their name, microphylls are not always small: those of ''Isoëtes'' can reach 25 centimetres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lepidodendrales
Lepidodendrales (from the Greek for "scale tree") were primitive, vascular, heterosporous, arborescent (tree-like) plants related to present day lycopsids. Members of Lepidodendrales are the best understood of the fossil lycopsids due to the vast diversity of Lepidodendrales specimens and the diversity in which they were preserved; the extensive distribution of Lepidodendrales specimens as well as their well-preservedness lends paleobotanists exceptionally detailed knowledge of the coal-swamp giants’ reproductive biology, vegetative development, and role in their paleoecosystem. The defining characteristics of the Lepidodendrales are their secondary xylem, extensive periderm development, three-zoned cortex, rootlike appendages known as stigmarian rootlets arranged in a spiralling pattern, and megasporangium each containing a single functional megaspore that germinates inside the sporangium. Many of these different plant organs have been assigned both generic and specific names a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asteroxylon
''Asteroxylon'' ("star-shaped xylem") is an extinct genus of vascular plants of the Division Lycopodiophyta known from anatomically preserved specimens described from the famous Early Devonian Rhynie chert and Windyfield chert in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. ''Asteroxylon'' is considered a basal member of the Lycopsida. Description ''Asteroxylon'' is a genus of terrestrial vascular plant which flourished in the Early Devonian period. This plant consisted of aerial, isotomously and anisotomously branching stems that reached 12 mm in diameter and 40 cm in length. The possibly procumbent aerial stems arose from a leaf-less rhizome which bore smaller-diameter, positively geotropic root-like branches. The rhizomes, which represent an independent origin of roots, reached a depth of up to 20 cm below the surface. A 407 million-year-old fossil from the Rhynie chert shows the roots formed through a modified version of a mechanism called “dichotomous branching”, where one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synapomorphy And Apomorphy
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 have evolved in their most recent common ancestor. ) In cladistics, synapomorphy implies homology. Examples of apomorphy are the presence of erect gait, fur, the evolution of three middle ear bones, and mammary glands in mammals but not in other vertebrate animals such as amphibians or reptiles, which have retained their ancestral traits of a sprawling gait and lack of fur. Thus, these derived traits are also synapomorphies of mammals in general as they are not shared by other vertebrate animals. Etymology The word —coined by German entomologist Willi Hennig—is derived from the Ancient Greek words (''sún''), meaning "with, together"; (''apó''), meaning "away from"; and (''morphḗ''), meaning "shape, form". Clade analysis Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
