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Pteridophyta

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Pteridophyta

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Also known as pteridophytes

A pteridophyte is a vascular plant with xylem and phloem that reproduces by means of spores. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are sometimes referred to as "cryptogams", meaning that their means of reproduction is hidden. They are also the ancestors of the plants we see today.

OverviewAI-generated

Pteridophyta is a taxon classified at the division rank, with Embryophytes as its parent taxon. It is distinct from Polypodiopsida and ferns. The group is described in sources including the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, the Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition, and the Granat Encyclopedic Dictionary. Its common name is 蕨类植物门.

According to the World Register of Marine Species, Pteridophyta holds an unaccepted status at the phylum rank. In the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, it is listed under the kingdom Plantae. The iDigBio database contains 34,227 records and 30,708 media items for this family. These records are associated with institutions such as NHMUK, FMNH, DBG, YPM, and NY, and span countries including the United Kingdom, United States, Brazil, Svalbard And Jan Mayen, and Peru.

Synthesized by Vinony from 24 facts across 6 sources: Wikidata, GBIF, Gbif Occ, WoRMS, iDigBio, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Species

Plantae

KINGDOM

  1. KingdomPlantae
  2. PhylumPteridophyta
Observations recorded610,507,846

via GBIF

Museum specimens

Specimen records
34,227
With media
30,708
Family
Pteridophyta
Collections
NHMUK, FMNH, DBG, YPM, NY, F
Recorded in
United Kingdom, United States, Brazil, Svalbard And Jan Mayen, Peru, Japan, Venezuela, Bolivia

~9 min read

Encyclopedic overview

10 sections
Contents
  • Description
  • Taxonomy
  • Phylogeny
  • Subdivision
  • Etymology
  • Life cycle
  • See also
  • References
  • Bibliography
  • External links

A pteridophyte is a vascular plant with xylem and phloem that reproduces by means of spores. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are sometimes referred to as "cryptogams", meaning that their means of reproduction is hidden. They are also the ancestors of the plants we see today.

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, for example by the International Association of Pteridologists and the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Pteridophyta” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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