Vascular plant

The vascular plants, or tracheophytes, are plants that have specialized tissues for conducting water, minerals, and photosynthetic products through the plant. They include the ferns, clubmosses, horsetails, flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms.Scientific names are Tracheophyta and Tracheobionta, but neither is very widely used. They are often called the higher plants.Kenrick, Paul & Peter R. Crane 1997. The origin and early diversification of land plants: a cladistic study. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. .

The vascular plants are set apart in two main ways:
 Vascular plants have vascular tissues, which circulate resources through the plant.  This feature allows vascular plants to grow to a larger size than non-vascular plants, which lack these specialized conducting tissues and are therefore restricted to relatively small sizes. 
 In vascular plants, the principal generation phase is the sporophyte, which is diploid with two sets of chromosomes per cell.In non-vascular plants, the principal generation phase is often the gametophyte, which is haploid with one set of chromosomes per cell.

Water transport happens in either xylem or phloem: xylem carries water and inorganic solutes upward toward the leaves from the roots, while phloem carries organic solutes throughout the plant.

Members
Spore-bearing vascular plants
Equisetophyta ~ horsetails
Lycopodiophyta ~ clubmosses, spikemosses, quillworts
Pteridophyta ~ ferns

Seed-bearing vascular plants - Superdivision Spermatophyta
Pinophyta ~ conifers
Cycadophyta ~ cycads
Ginkgophyta ~ ginkgoes
Gnetophyta ~ gnetophytes
Magnoliophyta ~ flowering plants

Related pages
Non-vascular plant
Embryophyte

 References