if you've ever seen more than one species of plant you'll probably agree with me that they can look quite different from one another there are around 400 000 species of plants we can find on Earth and these plants differ not only in the way they look but also in the way they're rooted in the ground the reproductive cycle or even the way they transport water in their bodies to organize and group these different types of plants we use a system called classification we classify plants into groups each group has a set of characteristics that apply to all members within that group the majority of these characteristics are observable so after watching this video you'll be able to classify plants yourself the major divisions of plants are a result of their evolution over hundreds of millions of years and keeping this evolution in the back of your mind will help you understand why we classify the plants the way we do and how these categories originated let's go way back to around 2.5 billion years ago before there were any plans there were cyanobacteria which perform photosynthesis and is a byproduct produce oxygen in fact they were the first organisms on Earth that started releasing oxygen into the atmosphere however cyanobacteria are not classified as plants and even though they're green They Don't Really resemble plants and that's assuming you can even see them in the first place since they're microscopic in size what came after cyanobacteria are algae which are organisms that look much more like plants algae are a very diverse group of organisms that can be found on land in fresh water and in Marine environments and include the seaweeds we distinguish three groups the evolutionarily older Brown and red algae and the younger green algae even though some species look quite plant-like with blades that look like leaves and hold fats that might remind you of roots they are technically not plants but they are important for our story because it's believed to True plants share a common ancestor with green algae specifically the order cheralis the stone words so from green algae we finally arrived to do true plants let's look at how we classify them land plants or the embryo fighter are traditionally divided into four groups the oldest Group which evolved some 470 million years ago are the bryophytes bryophytes consist of mosses liverworts and hornworts they tend to grow in moist habitats although they are not limited to them different types of bryophytes often grow together as seen on this slope covered in different species of mosses and liverworts they like roots and instead are anchored to surfaces by fibrous rhizoids this enables them to occupy habitats where plants with true roots cannot grow so you can find bryophytes growing on roofs rocks and other surfaces without soil their size is limited by an absence of vascular tissues which conduct water and nutrients in plant bodies for this reason we call them non-vascular plants you'll also be unsuccessful in finding any flowers fruits or seeds on bryophytes even though they can reproduce sexually they do so by spores you can actually often see Sports capsules on mosses they look like antennas sticking out of the moss plant I made a video focused on bryophyte lifecycle where I explain all the details you can watch it by clicking here and I'll also share the link in the description below it's also important to note that bryophytes are dependent on water for their reproduction as the sperm reaches the egg through water droplets going forward with our groupings all the rest of our land plants have vascular tissues we call them vascular plants pterodophytes are the group to which Ferns and lycophytes belong you might be less familiar with lycophytes their members are commonly called clubmoses spike mosses and quill words so maybe these terms will ring a bell to give you an idea one of the genre belonging to spike mosses is the widely distributed cilogenella the and I probably don't have to introduce you to ferns their bodies have clearly recognizable roots stems and true leaves or fronds also they can grow taller than bryophytes thanks to the presence of vascular tissues however potato fights still like flowers and seeds and similarly to bryophytes they reproduce via spores you might have seen the sporangia with spores on the underside of fern leaves they look like little brown blobs I'm curious to know if you've ever noticed them let me know in the comments below about 350 million years ago the seed plants first appeared production of seeds is a critical feature that brings plants many advantages also the evolution of pollen at this point means that sperm can be transported to eggs within pollen grains by wind or pollinators thus plants that produce pollen do not rely on water for their reproduction the first group of seed plants are the gymnosperms gymnosperms include conifers cycats Ginkgo fight and glidophytes you're all probably familiar with various coniferous trees and ginkgo biloba the only species in the phylum gankofara is also pretty well known cycats are tropical plants that look a lot like palms and magnetophytes include free existing genre ephedra the very unusual looking velvicia and Canadian I think it's fascinating to see these genre that are closely related but look wildly different but maybe that's a topic for a separate video gymnosperms have naked seeds which means that their ovules are partially exposed during development often inside a cone look at this cycad this pine tree and this ephedra they all have cone structures if you want to know more about gymnosperm life cycle I made a video about Pine reproduction which you can see right here The evolutionary youngest group are the seed plants with enclosed seats meaning the ovules are protected during development and their seeds are enclosed in a fruit those are flowering plants the angiosperms fruit is not the only distinctive feature of angiosperms but as the name flowering plants suggests they bear flowers I don't think there is any need to give you examples of flowering plants as with their diversity and abundance they make up 90 of all land plants to conclude land plans or embryofides are traditionally divided into four groups these four groups are themselves divided into vascular and non-vascular plants non-vascular plants consist of the bryophytes while vascular plants and body pteridophytes gymnosperms and angiosperms gymnosperms and angiosperms are characterized by having seeds and are often referred to as seed plants angiosperms the largest group of plants bear flowers and are known as flowering plants I hope this explanation was helpful for you and if you have any questions please leave them down in the comments below if you like my content please support me by subscribing to my channel so I can keep creating more educational videos for you thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next week