Subclade of green plants, also known as land plants
Land plants
Temporal range: Mid Ordovician–Present[1][2]
PreꞒ
Ꞓ
O
S
D
C
P
T
J
K
Pg
N
(Spores from Dapingian (early Middle Ordovician))
Moss
Angiosperm
Fern
Hornwort
Gymnosperm
Lycophyte
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Plantae
Clade:
Streptophyta
Clade:
Embryophytes Engler, 1892[3][4]
Divisions
Non-vascular land plants (bryophytes)
Marchantiophyta – liverworts
Bryophyta – mosses
Anthocerotophyta – hornworts
†Horneophytopsida
Vascular plants (tracheophytes)
†Rhyniophyta – rhyniophytes
†Zosterophyllophyta – zosterophylls
Lycopodiophyta – clubmosses
†Trimerophytophyta – trimerophytes
Polypodiophyta – ferns and horsetails
Seed plants (spermatophytes)
†Pteridospermatophyta – seed ferns
Pinophyta – conifers
Cycadophyta – cycads
Ginkgophyta – ginkgo
Gnetophyta – gnetae
Magnoliophyta – flowering plants
Traditional groups:
Bryophyta*
Pteridophyta*
Gymnospermae*
Angiospermae
Synonyms
Cormophyta Endlicher, 1836
Phyta Barkley, 1939[5]
Cormobionta Rothmaler, 1948[6]
Euplanta Barkley, 1949[7]
Telomobionta Takhtajan, 1964[8]
Embryobionta Cronquist et al. 1966[9]
Metaphyta Whittaker, 1969[10]
Plantae Margulis, 1971[11]
The embryophytes (/ˈɛmbriəˌfaɪts/) are a clade of plants, also known as Embryophyta (/ˌɛmbriˈɒfətə,-oʊˈfaɪtə/) or land plants. They are the most familiar group of photoautotrophs that make up the vegetation on Earth's dry lands and wetlands. Embryophytes (/ˈɛmbriəˌfaɪts/) have a common ancestor with green algae, having emerged within the Phragmoplastophyta clade of freshwater charophyte green algae as a sister taxon of Charophyceae, Coleochaetophyceae and Zygnematophyceae.[12] Embryophytes consist of the bryophytes and the polysporangiophytes.[13] Living embryophytes include hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms (flowering plants). Embryophytes have diplobiontic life cycles.[14]
The embryophytes are informally called "land plants" because they thrive primarily in terrestrial habitats (despite some members having evolved secondarily to live once again in semiaquatic/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 embryo sporophyte during the early stages of its multicellular development within the tissues of the parent gametophyte. With very few exceptions, embryophytes obtain biological energy by photosynthesis, using chlorophyll a and b to harvest the light energy in sunlight for carbon fixation from carbon dioxide and water in order to synthesize carbohydrates while releasing oxygen as a byproduct.
^Gray, J.; Chaloner, W.G. & Westoll, T.S. (1985), "The Microfossil Record of Early Land Plants: Advances in Understanding of Early Terrestrialization, 1970-1984 [and Discussion]", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 309 (1138): 167–195, Bibcode:1985RSPTB.309..167G, doi:10.1098/rstb.1985.0077
^Rubinstein, C.V.; Gerrienne, P.; De La Puente, G.S.; Astini, R.A. & Steemans, P. (2010), "Early Middle Ordovician evidence for land plants in Argentina (eastern Gondwana)", New Phytologist, 188 (2): 365–9, doi:10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03433.x, hdl:11336/55341, PMID 20731783
^Engler, A. 1892. Syllabus der Vorlesungen über specielle und medicinisch-pharmaceutische Botanik: Eine Uebersicht über das ganze Pflanzensystem mit Berücksichtigung der Medicinal- und Nutzpflanzen. Berlin: Gebr. Borntraeger.
^Pirani, J. R.; Prado, J. (2012). "Embryopsida, a new name for the class of land plants" (PDF). Taxon. 61 (5): 1096–1098. doi:10.1002/tax.615014.
^Barkley, Fred A. Keys to the phyla of organisms. Missoula, Montana. 1939.
^Rothmaler, Werner. Über das natürliche System der Organismen. Biologisches Zentralblatt. 67: 242-250. 1948.
^Barkley, Fred A. "Un esbozo de clasificación de los organismos". Revista de la Facultad Nacional de Agronomia, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín. 10: 83–103. Archived from the original on 2020-04-21. Retrieved 2014-11-04.
^Takhtajan, A (1964). "The taxa of the higher plants above the rank of order" (PDF). Taxon. 13 (5): 160–164. doi:10.2307/1216134. JSTOR 1216134.
^Cronquist, A.; Takhtajan, A.; Zimmermann, W. (1966). "On the Higher Taxa of Embryobionta" (PDF). Taxon. 15 (4): 129–134. doi:10.2307/1217531. JSTOR 1217531.
^Whittaker, R. H. (1969). "New concepts of kingdoms or organisms" (PDF). Science. 163 (3863): 150–160. Bibcode:1969Sci...163..150W. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.403.5430. doi:10.1126/science.163.3863.150. PMID 5762760. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-11-17. Retrieved 2014-11-28.
^Margulis, L (1971). "Whittaker's five kingdoms of organisms: minor revisions suggested by considerations of the origin of mitosis". Evolution. 25 (1): 242–245. doi:10.2307/2406516. JSTOR 2406516. PMID 28562945.
^Delwiche, Charles F.; Timme, Ruth E. (2011-06-07). "Plants". Current Biology. 21 (11): R417–R422. Bibcode:2011CBio...21.R417D. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.04.021. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 21640897. S2CID 235312105.
^Cite error: The named reference Puttick-2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Gerrienne, Philippe; Gonez, Paul (January 2011). "Early evolution of life cycles in embryophytes: A focus on the fossil evidence of gametophyte/sporophyte size and morphological complexity". Journal of Systematics and Evolution. 49 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1111/j.1759-6831.2010.00096.x. hdl:2268/101745. S2CID 29795245.
The embryophytes (/ˈɛmbriəˌfaɪts/) are a clade of plants, also known as Embryophyta (/ˌɛmbriˈɒfətə, -oʊˈfaɪtə/) or land plants. They are the most familiar...
Like the land plants (embryophytes: bryophytes and tracheophytes), green algae (chlorophytes and charophytes besides embryophytes) contain chlorophyll...
include the green algae, which are primarily aquatic, and the land plants (embryophytes), which emerged from within them. Green algae traditionally excludes...
plants (Embryophytes) have emerged deep in the Charophyte alga as a sister of the Zygnematophyceae. Since the realization that the Embryophytes emerged...
gametophytes, i. e., produces both pollen and seeds, or just one of the sexes. Embryophyte Fern ally Plant sexuality Schneider & Schuettpelz 2016. Pteridophyte...
Charophyceae is basal in the Phragmoplastophyta clade which contains the embryophytes (land plants). In 2018, the first nuclear genome sequence from a species...
Viridiplantae (green plants), which consists of the green algae and the embryophytes or land plants (hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, conifers...
taxonomic division, that contains three groups of non-vascular land plants (embryophytes): the liverworts, hornworts, and mosses. In the strict sense, Bryophyta...
Phaenogamae), is any plant that produces seeds. It is a category of embryophyte (i.e. land plant) that includes most of the familiar land plants, including...
multicellular forms these haploid cells will grow into a gametophyte. In embryophytes (land plants) the zygote will instead give rise to a multicellular sporophyte...
The strictest definition of "plant" includes only the "land plants" or embryophytes, which include seed plants (gymnosperms, including the pines, and flowering...
branching, all point to the plant being a liverwort. Unlike any other embryophytes, most liverworts contain unique membrane-bound oil bodies containing...
Hornworts are a group of non-vascular Embryophytes (land plants) constituting the division Anthocerotophyta (/ˌænθoʊˌsɛrəˈtɒfətə, -təˈfaɪtə/). The common...
rosid phylogeny is revised. Fossilised spores suggest that land plants (embryophytes) have existed for at least 475 million years. However, angiosperms appear...
Streptophyta Charales Embryophyta Division Charophyta (charophyte algae and embryophytes) Class Mesostigmatophyceae (mesostigmatophytes) Class Chlorokybophyceae...
"The Interrelationships of Land Plants and the Nature of the Ancestral Embryophyte". Current Biology. 28 (5): 733–745.e2. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2018.01.063...
also been applied to less inclusive clades, such as Viridiplantae and embryophytes. To distinguish, the larger group is sometimes known as Plantae sensu...
as giving rise to new organisms without fertilization. In almost all embryophytes, including most gymnosperms and all angiosperms, the male gametophytes...
No calcareous macroalgae are known from the period. No land plant (embryophyte) fossils are known from the Cambrian. However, biofilms and microbial...
2307/2805564. JSTOR 2805564. S2CID 21794174. Edwards, D. & Wellman, C. (2001), "Embryophytes on Land: The Ordovician to Lochkovian (Lower Devonian) Record", in Gensel...
classified as protists, others such as charophyta are classified with embryophyte plants, which are the most familiar group of land plants. Algae can grow...
Becker, B.; Marin, B. (2009). "Streptophyte algae and the origin of embryophytes". Annals of Botany. 103 (7): 999–1004. doi:10.1093/aob/mcp044. PMC 2707909...
cycle is common to all land plants they are known collectively as the embryophytes.[citation needed] Most algae have dominant gametophyte generations, but...