The environment in which I found these mosses was a damp, cold, kind of wet environment. There was water nearby too. It was a place that would have a lot of water left after it rained. Mosses need to live in these moist environments because they need a lot of water. They need a lot of water because they have swimming sperm that needs water to swim through, in order to get to the egg. Also, mosses are non-vascular, meaning they do not have special tubes that transports nutrients and water throughout the whole plant. This is why mosses live in wet environments, they need direct water. The fact that they are non-vascular is why they grow close to the ground. They lack the vascular tissue (the tubes) needed to get water and nutrients to the cells high above ground. Mosses can grow on rocks because they can grow anywhere that is moist, or wet. Also, mosses do not have roots that anchor into dirt. Mosses have rhizoids which are root-like structures that anchor the moss to the ground. They can anchor a moss onto a rock.
Ferns:
This is the underside of the fern shown above. I can see some sori.
The environment in which I found these ferns was a wet, moist environment, and one of them was actually right beside a little stream of water. Ferns need to live in moist environments because they also have swimming sperm that needs water to swim to the egg. Ferns are different from mosses because they can grow tall, they have big, long stems, and they have proper leaves called fronds. They are vascular. Because they are vascular, they can grow bigger. The vascular tissue transports nutrients and water throughout the whole plant, including high above the ground. This is why ferns can grow big. Their stems support them too, helping them to stay up. Ferns need to grow in soil because they have roots, and these roots anchor into soil, and obtain water and minerals from the soil for the fern.
Gymnosperms:
Some adaptations that gymnosperms have that allows them to live in varied environments (such as cold, harsh environments) is their needle-like leaves. These leaves are an adaptation to withstand harsh climates. Also, gymnosperms produce seeds, which are able to withstand droughts and cold temperatures because of their dry, inactive state. Pollination is different from fertilization because pollination is when the pollen grain comes in contact with the female structures of a gymnosperm. Fertilization is when a sperm cell joins with an egg cell, and produces a diploid zygote. The structures involved in pollination are the pollen cones, the pollen grains, and the seed cones. The structures involved in fertilization are the sperm cells, the egg cells, and the pollen tubes.
Angiosperms:
The branched veins on this leaf show that it is a dicot.
Angiosperms are well adapted to life on land because they have many different strategies to reproduce. They produce pollen which does not need water to get to another plant, it gets blown away by the wind. The fact that angiosperms do not need water to reproduce, is a good reason for a plant to be assumed well adapted to life on land. Angiosperms have other strategies too, like having colorful and scented petals to attract pollinators, in order to disperse the pollen to other plants. Also, angiosperms produce fruit with seeds in them, and these fruits are made for animals to eat, so that later, the animal that eats the fruit will poop out the seeds. If the seeds are in a good place, they will grow another plant. These are some seed dispersal strategies that angiosperms use, and they also show that angiosperms are well adapted to life on land. The purpose of the fruit that is produced from an angiosperm, is that it is a protective covering for the seeds, unlike gymnosperms, which have no protective covering around the seeds. Also, the fruit is produced for seed dispersal (explained above).
This is a really great post. It shows clearly the male and female cones that go with the gymnosperms and the berries with the dicot. Great job with your info too.
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