page_title: Non-vascular plant
hierarchical_section_title: Non-vascular plant
caption_attribution_description: English: The stoneworts alga Chara globularis (Syn.: Chara fragilis; Characeae). Deutsch: Habitus der Zerbrechlichen Armleuchteralge (Chara globularis; Syn.: Chara fragilis); drapiert in einem mit Wasser gefüllten Teller und senkrecht von oben fotografiert. Diese Art ist die wohl häufigste Armleuchteralge in Deutschland (bei regionalen Unterschieden) – die meisten anderen Arten stehen auf der Roten Liste, einige sind extrem selten.
context_page_description: Non-vascular plants are plants without the vascular system consisting of xylem and phloem. Although non-vascular plants lack these particular tissues, many possess simpler tissues that have specialized functions for the internal transport of water.
  Non-vascular plants include two distantly related groups:
  Bryophytes, an informal group that taxonomists now treat as three separate land-plant Divisions, namely: Bryophyta, Marchantiophyta, and Anthocerotophyta. In all bryophytes, the primary plants are the haploid gametophytes, with the only diploid portion being the attached sporophyte, consisting of a stalk and sporangium. Because these plants lack lignified water-conducting tissues, they can't become as tall as most vascular plants.
  Algae - especially the green algae. Recent studies have demonstrated that the algae consist of several unrelated groups. Only those groups of algae included in the Viridiplantae are still considered relatives of land plants.
context_section_description: Non-vascular plants are plants without the vascular system consisting of xylem and phloem.  Although non-vascular plants lack these  particular tissues, many possess simpler tissues that have specialized functions for the internal transport of water.
  Non-vascular plants include two distantly related groups:
  Bryophytes, an informal group that taxonomists now treat as three separate land-plant  Divisions, namely:  Bryophyta (mosses), Marchantiophyta (liverworts), and  Anthocerotophyta (hornworts). In all bryophytes, the primary plants are the haploid gametophytes, with the only diploid portion being the attached sporophyte, consisting of a stalk and sporangium.  Because these plants lack  lignified water-conducting tissues, they can't become as tall as most vascular plants.
  Algae - especially the green algae. Recent studies have demonstrated that the algae consist of several unrelated groups. Only those groups of algae included in the Viridiplantae are still considered relatives of land plants.
  These groups are sometimes called as "lower plants", referring to their status as the earliest plant groups to evolve, but the usage is imprecise, since both groups are polyphyletic and may be used to include  vascular cryptogams, such as the ferns and fern allies that reproduce using spores. Non-vascular plants are often among the first species to move into new and inhospitable territories, along with prokaryotes and protists, and thus function as pioneer species.
  Non-vascular plants do not have a wide variety of specialized tissue types.  Mosses and leafy liverworts have structures called phyllids that look like  leaves, but are not true leaves because they are single sheets of cells with no internal air spaces, no  cuticle or stomata and no xylem or phloem. Consequently, phyllids are unable to control the rate of water loss from their tissues and are said to be  poikilohydric. Some liverworts, such as Marchantia have a cuticle and the sporophytes of mosses have both cuticles and stomata, which were important in the  evolution of land plants.
  All land plants have a  life cycle with an alternation of generations between a diploid sporophyte and a haploid gametophyte, but in all non-vascular land plants the gametophyte generation is dominant.  In these plants, the sporophytes grow from and are dependent on gametophytes for taking in water and mineral nutrients and for provision of photosynthate, the products of photosynthesis.
caption: Algae are a type of non-vascular plant.
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