We continue our study of bryophytes in Kingdom Plantae. We have already seen how bryophytes are eukaryotic, have chlorophyll a and b as well as xanthophylls and carotenoid pigments for photosynthesis, store starch, and have pectin-cellulose walls. These characteristics are common for ALL members of Kingdom Plantae. All bryophytes have a sporic life cycle that is oogamous.
Bryophytes are very similar to each other and fundamentally similar to flowering plants.
The hornwort gametophyte thallus is not much different from a thallose liverwort. Beneath the thallus the lower epidermis anchors itself with rhizoids. Hollow areas of the central pad region may house symbiotic cyanobacteria. One interesting fact about many hornworts is that the gametophyte cell has a single chloroplast. Whether that is anamorphic or plesiomorpic or whether it represents anagenesis or cladogenesis or whether this is a parallelism or convergence is an interesting topic.