Bryophyte

**Features of Bryophytes:**
– Life cycles dominated by a multicellular gametophyte stage
– Unbranched sporophytes
– Lack true vascular tissue with lignin
– Some have specialized tissues for water transport
– Produce enclosed reproductive structures but no flowers or seeds

**Habitat and Adaptation:**
– Found in diverse habitats with varying temperatures and moisture levels
– Can thrive in environments where vascularized plants struggle
– Able to grow on rocks and bare soil
– Range from cold arctics to hot deserts
– Adapted to survive at different elevations from sea-level to alpine regions

**Life Cycle and Reproduction:**
– Alternation of generations in their life cycles
– Gametophyte dominant with sporophytes being unbranched
– Reproduce sexually by spores and asexually by fragmentation or gemmae
– Sporophytes produce spores by meiosis
– Liverworts, mosses, and hornworts spend most of their lives as gametophytes

**Classification and Phylogeny of Bryophytes:**
– Bryophytes include liverworts, mosses, and hornworts
– Recent studies suggest bryophytes form a monophyletic group
– Liverworts were once considered part of hornworts
– Genomic and transcriptomic datasets support bryophytes as monophyletic
– Bryophytes are the earliest diverging lineages of extant land plants

**Evolution and Similarities to Algae and Vascular Plants:**
– Several terrestrialization events occurred in the Viridiplantae lineage
– Bryophytes provide insights into plant migration to land
– Green algae, bryophytes, and vascular plants share chlorophyll a and b
– Bryophytes have adaptations for terrestrial environments
– Water is essential for bryophyte reproduction and survival

Bryophyte (Wikipedia)

Bryophytes (/ˈbraɪˌoʊfaɪts/) are a group of land plants, sometimes treated as a taxonomic division, that contains three groups of non-vascular land plants (embryophytes): the liverworts, hornworts and mosses. In the strict sense, Bryophyta consists of the mosses only. Bryophytes are characteristically limited in size and prefer moist habitats although they can survive in drier environments. The bryophytes consist of about 20,000 plant species. Bryophytes produce enclosed reproductive structures (gametangia and sporangia), but they do not produce flowers or seeds. They reproduce sexually by spores and asexually by fragmentation or the production of gemmae. Though bryophytes were considered a paraphyletic group in recent years, almost all of the most recent phylogenetic evidence supports the monophyly of this group, as originally classified by Wilhelm Schimper in 1879. The term bryophyte comes from Ancient Greek βρύον (brúon) 'tree moss, liverwort', and φυτόν (phutón) 'plant'.