SYNOPTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE PHYLUM LYCOPODOPHYTA
| EUKARYA> ARCHAEPLASTIDA> VIRIDIPLANTAE> STREPTOBIONTA> EMBRYOPHYTA> TRACHEOPHYTA> LYCOPODOPHYTA |
LYCOPODOPHYTA LINKS
| The following description applies mainly to extant taxa and comes from Bold et al (1987), Bierhorst (1971), Margulis and Schwartz (1998), and Pearson (1995). |
I. SYNONYMS: lycopods, club mosses, Microphyllophyta, Lycopodiophyta.
II. NUMBER: > 1,000 extant species
III. PHYLUM CHARACTERISTICS
- A. Structure
- Gametophyte: Small, usually underground, saprophytic; gametophyte grows within the bounds of the spore wall in some.
- Sporophyte: Herbaceous; extant species generally creeping and with upright dichotomizing (text with tooltip) Dichotomous branching is the simple pattern of branching in which each node produces two equal branches. axes.
- Spores: Homosporous (text with tooltip) Homosporous (adj) plants produce one type of spore. to heterosporous (text with tooltip) Heterosporous plants have sporangia that produce spores of different sizes: megaspores (large) and microspores (small). Megaspores produce archegoniate gametophytes, and microspores produce antheridial gametophytes. .
- Sporangia: Thick-walled eusporangia (text with tooltip) A eusporangium is the most common spore-bearing structure in plants. Eusporangia develop from more than one cell and usually have a wall of several cell layers. Contrast a eusporangium with a leptosporangium. usually associated with microphylls (text with tooltip) An microphyll is a type of leaf that has a simple vascular trace going into it. The vascular trace does not produce a gap in the stele. Microphylls are characteristic of of the club mosses (Lycopodophyta). (sporophylls) often united into a strobilus (text with tooltip) A strobilus is an axis of fertile appendages. A simple strobilus is an axis of sporophylls. A compound strobilus is an axis of simple fertile axes. Sometimes the compound cones have simple fertile axes that are reduced to a single sporophyll and appear to be simple strobili. .
- Stele: Variable; actinostelic to siphonostelic (text with tooltip) A siphonostele is a type of stele that has a parenchymatous pith in the center of continuous rings of vascular tissue. .
- Leaves: Microphylls which are spirally arranged on the stems.
- Roots: Present; protostelic.
- Life History of
- B. Ecology: Variable, from terrestrial and epiphytic to aquatic and semi-aquatic; found from tropics to subarctic regions; deserts to rain forests.
| LITERATURE CITED Bierhorst, D. W. 1971. Morphology of Vascular Plants. In: N. H. Giles and J. G. Torrey. The MacMillan Biology Series. The MacMillan Co. New York. Bold, H. C., C. J. Alexopoulos, and T. Delevoryas. 1987. Morphology of Plants and Fungi. 5th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York. Crane, P. R., P. Herendeen, and E. M. Friis. 2004. Fossils and plant phylogeny. American Journal of Botany. 91(10): 1683-1699. Cronquist, A., A. Takhtajan, and W. Zimmermann. 1966. On the higher taxa of Embryobionta. Taxon. 15(15): 129-134. Doyle, J. A. 1998b. Phylogeny of vascular plants. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 29:567-599. Fenton, C. L. and M. A. Fenton 1958. The Fossil Book. Doubleday and Co., Inc. New York. Gensel, P. G. and C. M. Berry. 2001. Early lycophyte evolution. American Fern Journal. 91(3): 74-96. Judd, W. S., C. S. Campbell, E. A. Kellogg, P. F. Stevens, and M. J. Donoghue. 2008. Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach. 3rd edition. Sinauer Associates, Inc. Sunderland, MA. Keeley, J. E. 1981. Isoetes howellii: A submerged aquatic CAM plant? American Journal of Botany. 68(3): 420-424. Kenrick, P. and P. R. Crane. 1997b. The origin and early diversification of land plants: a cladistic study. Smithsonian Institute Press. Washington, DC. Margulis, L. and K. Schwartz. 1998. Five kingdoms, an illustrated guide to the phyla of life on earth. 3rd Edition. W. H. Freeman and Company. New York. Pearson, L. C. 1995. The Diversity and Evolution of Plants. CRC Press. New York. Qiu, Y.-L. and J. D. Palmer. 1999. Phylogeny of early land plants: insights from genes and genomes. Trends in Plant Science. 4(1): 26-30. Qiu, Y.-L., L. Libo, B. Wang, Z. Chen, V. Knoop, M. Groth-Malonek, O. Dombrovska, J. Lee, L. Kent, J. Rest, G. F. Estabrook, T. A. Hendry, D. W. Taylor, C. M. Testa, M. Ambros, B. Crandall-Stotler, R. J. Duff, M. Stech, W. Frey, D. Quandt, and C. C. Davis. 2006. The deepest divergences in land plants inferred from phylogenomic evidence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. USA. 103(42): 15511-15516. |
| By Jack R. Holt. Last revised: 03/25/2013 |
