WHAT IS DIVERSITY ?

Diversity is a commitment to recognizing and appreciating the variety of characteristics that make individuals unique

in an atmosphere that promotes and celebrates individual and collective

achievement. NEXT

PLANTAE

The first level of classification among plants depends on whether the plant body has

well- differentiated, distinct components. The next level of classification is based on whether the differentiated plant body ha special tissues for the transport of water

and other substance within. Further classification looks at the ability to bear

seeds and whether the seeds are enclosed within fruits. NEXT

THALLOPHYTA

A phylum of plants of very diverse habit and structure, including the algae, fungi, and lichens. The simpler forms, as many blue-

green algae, yeasts, etc., are unicellular and reproduce vegetatively or by means of asexual spores; in the higher forms

the plant body is a thallus, which may be filamentous or may consist of plates of cells; it is commonly undifferentiated into

stem, leaves, and roots, and shows no distinct tissue systems; the fronds of many algae, however, are modified to serve many of the

functions of the above-named organs. Both asexual and sexual reproduction, often of a complex type, occur in these forms. The

Thallophyta exist almost exclusively as gametophytes, the sporophyte being absent or rudimentary. By those who do not

separate the Myxophyta from the Tallophyta as a distinct phylum the latter is treated as the lowermost group in the vegetable

kingdom.NEXT

EXAMPLES OF TYALLOPHYTA – ALGAE

ULVA SPIROGYRA CHARA

CLADOPHORA ULOTHRIXNEXT

BRYOPHYTA

A member of a large group of seedless green plants including the mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. Bryophytes lack the specialized tissues xylem and

phloem that circulate water and dissolved nutrients in the vascular plants. Bryophytes generally live on

land but are mostly found in moist environments, for they have free-swimming sperm that require water for transport. In contrast to the vascular plants, the

gametophyte (haploid) generation of bryophytes constitutes the larger plant form, while the small

sporophyte (diploid) generation grows on or within the gametophyte and depends upon it for nutrition.

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EXAMPLES OF BRYOPHYTA

RICCIA MARCHANTIA

FUNARIA NEXT

PTERIDOPHYTA

A large group of higher plants to which are sometimes assigned all higher seedless plants

except mosses (Bryophyta). Unlike the bryophytes, the sporophyte—the asexual generation—is well

developed and divided, except in Psilotophyta, into stems, leaves, and roots. Spores develop, from which emerges the gametophyte—the sexual

generation. The gametophyte is poorly developed, almost undifferentiated, and bears sexual organs (in males, antheridia, and in females, archegonia). After fertilization, another asexual generation develops.

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EXAMLES OF PTERIDOPHYTA

FERNS MARSILEANEXT

GYMNOSPERMS

Gymnosperms are a group of vascular plants whose seeds are not enclosed by a

ripened  (fruit). Gymnosperms are distinguished from the other major group of seed plants,

the angiosperms, whose seeds are surrounded by an ovary wall. The seeds of many

Gymnosperms (literally, naked seed) are borne in cones and are not visible. Taxonomists now

recognize four distinct divisions of extant gymnospermous plants (coniferophyta,

cycadophyta, ginkgophyta, and gnetophyta).NEXT

EXAMPLES OF GYMNOSPERMS

CYCUSPINUS

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ANGIOSPERMS

Any of a large group of plants that produce flowers. They develop seeds from ovules contained in

ovaries, and the seeds are enclosed by fruits which develop from carpel's. They are also distinguished by the process of double fertilization. The majority

of angiosperms belong to two large classes : monocotyledons and eudicotyledons. The

angiosperms are the largest phylum of living plants, existing in some 235,000 species. They

range from small floating plants only one millimeter (0.04 inch) in length to towering trees

that are over 100 meters (328 ft) tall.NEXT

EXAMPLES OF ANGIOSPERMS

MONOCOTS - PAPHIOPEDILUM

DICOTS - IPOMOEA

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