Tag: botany

Vascular cryptogam is an old botanical phrase and it refers to those vascular plants that do not make seeds. Thus, cryptogam refers to the production of a separate, usually very small, archegoniate gametophyte. These are well represented in the fossil record.

Cryptogams are plants, that reproduce by spores without flowers or seeds but angiosperms possess flowers and seeds. Angiosperms are more advanced than the gymnosperms. They consist of covered seeds as compared to the naked seeds of the gymnosperms. Angiosperms bear true fruits. They show characteristics of double fertilization.

The spermatophyta comprises of all those land plants that produce flowers and seed. In angiosperms, and other seed plants, gametophytes are not independent seed plants, instead they are small structures found embedded within the sporophyte.

Cryptogams refer to the plants and fungi that do not reproduce by seeds. Besides these, the cryptogams are also known to reproduce by means of spores. All spore producing plants including mosses and ferns do not reproduce by seeds are hence, known as cryptogams.

The name horsetail, often used for the entire group, arose because the branched species somewhat resemble a horse's tail. 
Equisetum is the only living genus in Equisetaceae, a family of vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds.
Equisetum is a "living fossil" as it is the only living genus of the entire class Equisetopsida, which for over one hundred million years was much more diverse and dominated the understory of late Paleozoic forests. Some Equisetopsida were large trees reaching to 30 meters tall.

A cryptogam is a plant  that reproduces by spores and it is without flowers or seeds. Cryptogamae means hidden reproduction which refers to the fact that no seed is produced, thus cryptogams represent the non-seed bearing plants. Other names, such as "thallophytes", "lower plants", and "spore plants" are also occasionally used.

The phanerogams are the plants which can produce seeds. These are the plants which possess ovule where the fertilisation of male and female gametes takes place to form the zygote. The ovule is transformed into the seed after fertilisation. So, the seeds can be observed in the phanerogams. 

The plants exhibit the alternation of generations in their life cycle. The lower plants have a dependent sporophytic generation of the gametophyte. The first plants to develop as an independent sporophytic generation are the pteridophytes. These are the vascular plants which can survive in the terrestrial areas and has a independent diploid sporophytic stage.