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Embryophytes

Land Plants

Paul Kenrick and Peter Crane
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taxon links [up-->]Lycopodiopsida [up-->]Anthocerotophyta [up-->]Bryophyta [up-->]Polypodiopsida [up-->]Spermatopsida extinct icon extinct icon extinct icon extinct icon extinct icon extinct icon extinct icon extinct icon extinct icon extinct icon [down<--]Green plants Interpreting the tree
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This tree diagram shows the relationships between several groups of organisms.

The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right.

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You can click on the root to travel down the Tree of Life all the way to the root of all Life, and you can click on the names of descendent subgroups to travel up the Tree of Life all the way to individual species.

For more information on ToL tree formatting, please see Interpreting the Tree or Classification. To learn more about phylogenetic trees, please visit our Phylogenetic Biology pages.

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Containing group: Green plants

Other Names for Embryophytes

References

Donoghue, M. J. 1994. Progress and prospects in reconstructing plant phylogeny. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 81:405-418.

Doyle, J. A. 1998. Phylogeny of vascular plants. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 29:567-599.

Duff, R. J. and D. L. Nickrent. 1999. Phylogenetic relationships of land plants using mitochondrial small-subunit rDNA sequences. American Journal of Botany 86:372-386.

Judd, W. S., C. S. Campbell, E. A. Kellogg, P. F. Stevens, and M. J. Donoghue. 2002. Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach. Second Edition. Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, MA.

Kenrick, P. and P. R. Crane. 1997. The origin and early evolution of plants on land. Nature 389:33-39.

Kranz, H. D. and V. A. R. Huss. 1996. Molecular evolution of pteridophytes and their relationship to seed plants: Evidence from complete 18S rRNA gene sequences. Plant Systematics and Evolution 202:1-11.

Nickrent, D. L., C. L. Parkinson, J. D. Palmer, and R. J. Duff. 2000. Multigene phylogeny of land plants with special reference to bryophytes and the earliest land plants. Molecular Biology and Evolution 17:1885-1895.

Pryer, K. M., H. Schneider, A. R. Smith, R. Cranfill, P. G. Wolf, J. S. Hunt, and S. D. Sipes. 2001. Horsetails and ferns are a monophyletic group and the closest living relatives to seed plants. Nature 409:618-622.

Qiu, Y. L., Y. R. Cho, J. C. Cox, and J. D. Palmer. 1998. The gain of three mitochondrial introns identifies liverworts as the earliest land plants. Nature 394:671-674.

Renzaglia, K. S., R. J. Duff, D. L. Nickrent, and D. J. Garbary. 2000. Vegetative and reproductive innovations of early land plants: implications for a unified phylogeny. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B 355:769-793.

Rothwell, G. W. 1999. Fossils and ferns in the resolution of land plant phylogeny. Botanical Review 65:188-218.

Soltis, P. S., D. E. Soltis, V. Savolainen, P. R. Crane, and T. G. Barraclough. 2002. Rate heterogeneity among lineages of tracheophytes: Integration of molecular and fossil data and evidence for molecular living fossils. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 99:4430-4435.

Soltis, P. S., D. E. Soltis, P. G. Wolf, D. L. Nickrent, S.-M. Chaw, and R. L. Chapman. 1999. The phylogeny of land plants inferred from 18S rDNA sequences: Pushing the limits of rDNA signal? Molecular Biology and Evolution 16:1774-1784.

Information on the Internet

Title Illustrations
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Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Scientific Name Plagiomnium ellipticum
Location Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Source Plagiomnium ellipticum
Source Collection Flickr
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License - Version 2.0.
Copyright © 2003 cmoray1
Scientific Name Rosa canina
Location Reed's Beach, Cape May County, New Jersey, USA
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Source Dog Rose, P6070047
Source Collection Flickr
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 2.0.
Copyright © 2005 Anita Gould
Scientific Name Thelypteris palustris
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Source Marsh-Fern
Source Collection Flickr
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License - Version 2.0.
Copyright © 2008 homeredwardprice
About This Page

Paul Kenrick
The Natural History Museum London, United Kingdom


University of Chicago

All Rights Reserved.

Citing this page:

Kenrick, Paul and Peter Crane. 1996. Embryophytes. Land Plants. Version 01 January 1996 (temporary). http://tolweb.org/Embryophytes/20582/1996.01.01 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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This page is a Tree of Life Branch Page.

Each ToL branch page provides a synopsis of the characteristics of a group of organisms representing a branch of the Tree of Life. The major distinction between a branch and a leaf of the Tree of Life is that each branch can be further subdivided into descendent branches, that is, subgroups representing distinct genetic lineages.

For a more detailed explanation of the different ToL page types, have a look at the Structure of the Tree of Life page.

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