SYNOPTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE PHYLUM RHYNIOPHYTA
| EUKARYA> ARCHAEPLASTIDA> VIRIDIPLANTAE> STREPTOBIONTA> EMBRYOPHYTA> TRACHEOPHYTA> RHYNIOPHYTA |
RHYNIOPHYTA LINKS
| The following description comes from Bold et al. (1987), Bierhorst (1971), and Kenrick and Crane (1997). |
I. SYNONYMS: rhyniophytes
II. NUMBER: all extinct
PHYLUM CHARACTERISTICS
- A. Structure
- Gametophyte: Discoveries in the Rhynie chert of gametophytes suggest that the early rhyniophytes had elaborate, dichotomously-branched photosynthetic gametophytes..
- Sporophyte: Herbaceous; dichotomously branching (text with tooltip) Dichotomous branching is the simple pattern of branching in which each node produces two equal branches. stems.
- Spores: Homosporous (text with tooltip) Homosporous (adj) plants produce one type of spore. .
- 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. terminate fertile branches. One with a slender columella (text with tooltip) A small column of tissue running up through the center of the capsule. .
- Stele: A slender solid endarch vascular bundle. Phloem (text with tooltip) Phloem is food-conducting tissue and its elements function while they are alive. Phloem cell types include sieve tubes, companion cells, and phloem fibers. may or may not be present.
- Leaves: Absent.
- Roots: Absent. Probably a branching rhizomatous (text with tooltip) Plants having rhizomes (horizontal stems, often underground or on the surface of the ground, bearing scale-like leaves). system with rhizoids (text with tooltip) Thread-like growths, simple or branched, which serve for absorption and anchorage. .
- B. Ecology: All plants extinct from the late Silurian or Devonian periods. Fossils indicate that the plants grew in shallow aquatic habitats.
| LITERATURE CITED Banks, H. P. 1975. Reclassification of Psilophyta. Taxon. 24: 401-413.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. Boyce, C. K. 2008. How green was Cooksonia? The importance of size in understanding the early evolution of physiology in the vascular plant lineage. Paleobiology. 34(2): 179-194. Crane, P. R., P. Herendeen, and E. M. Friis. 2004. Fossils and plant phylogeny. American Journal of Botany. 91(10): 1683-1699. 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. Friedman, W. E. and M. E. Cook. 2000. The origin and early evolution of tracheids in vascular plants: integration of palaeobotanical and neobotanical data. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. 355:857-868. 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. Kerp, H., H. Hass, and V. Mosbrugger. 2001. New data on Nothia aphylla Lyon, 1964 ex El Saadawy et Lacey, 1979: a poorly known plant from the Lower Devonian Rhynie chert. In: Gensel, P. G. and D. Edwards, eds. Plants invade the land: evolutionary and environmental perspectives. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 52-82. 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. Pryer, K. M., H. Schneider, A. R. Smith, R. Cranfill, P. G. Wolf, J. S. Hunt, and S. D. Sipes. 2001a. Horsetails and Ferns are a Monophyletic Group and the Closest Living Relatives to Seed Plants. Nature. 409:618-622. Pryer, K. M., E. Schuettpelz, P. G. Wolf, H. Schneider, A. R. Smith, and R. Cranfill. 2004. Phylogeny and evolution of ferns (Monilophytes) with a focus on the early leptosporangiate divergences. American Journal of Botany. 91(10): 1582-1598. 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. Smith, A. R., K. M. Pryer, E. Schuettpelz, P. Korall, H. Schneider, and P. G. Wolf. 2006. A classification for extant ferns. Taxon. 55(3): 705-731. |
| By Jack R. Holt. Last revised: 03/21/2013 |
