Australian National Botanic Gardens

Vascular plants with seeds

Groups include:

• primitive seeds ferns (now extict) - e.g. Glossopteris and Gangamopteris

• cycads

• Ginkgo biloba

• conifers

• flowering plants - monocotyledons and dicotyledons

Seed ferns (e.g. Glossopteris)

- extinct, but many fossils found, particularly in the Permian coal measures of NSW and Qld

- fern-like appearance

Cycads (e.g. Macrozamia various species)

- separate male and female cones

- motile sperm

Ginkgo biloba

- cultivated around Chinese and Japanese temples

- once thought extinct in the wild but since discovered in remote regions of western China

- fan-shaped leaves

- separate male and female trees

Conifers

- most have true cones

- pollinated by wind

- naked seeds - i.e. not surrounded by ovary wall

- source of economically important timber - e.g. pine species, Western Red Cedar, Oregan and Australian native cypress pine

Flowering plants (angiosperms)

- complex vascular tissue

- dominate land vegetation except coniferous forests

- great variation in form - shrubs, trees, climbers; woody and non-woody

- structurally adapted to land habitats of great diversity, but also aquatic

- pollinated by animals - e.g. insects, birds and mammals - as well as wind and water

- flowers have stamens (male sex organs) and carpels (female sex organs)

- seeds within a closed structure (fruit)

- economically important