TAXONOMY EXPLANATION

The members of the kingdom PLANTAE are divided into Divisions, Classes and more, by different characteristics. On this page, the characteristics for the higher groups are listed. (Some include the 13 Classes of green algae in PLANTAE - I don't). Taxonomy changes, and  BRYOPHYTES is based on: Cavalier-Smith, 1998, PTERIDOPHYTES: Reveal, 1996, MAGNOLIOPHYTA: Arthur Cronquist, 1981-1988.
The recent work of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, based on the DNA of three genes is the latest system. Read more on: APG IV 2016 and PPG I 2016.

Kingdom Sub-Kingdom Super-Division Division Class

PLANTAE
The Plantae includes all land plants
Plants with chlorophyll, multi-cellular organisms that produce food through photosynthesis.
Common name: Plants

none
Plants with spores. Non-vascular: they cannot transport fluids through their bodies. Instead, they must rely on surrounding moisture to do this job for them.
Common name: Bryophytes. Mosses

ANTHOCEROTOPHYTA
Plants with porophytes that grow from the base. Cells contain a single large, platelike chloroplast.
Common name: Hornworts

ANTHOCEROTAE
Plants with porophytes that grow from the base. Cells contain a single large, platelike chloroplast.
Common name: Hornworts

ANTHOCEROTOPSIDA
Plants with sporophytes that grow from the base, and continues to grow throughout it's life. Cells contain a single large, platelike chloroplast.
Common name: Hornworts

BRYOPHYTA
Plants with the female sex organ is the archegonium, and are multicellular. The outer layer are of sterile celles. A alternation of generations between morphologically distinct gametophyte and sporophyte. Thesporophyte is attached to the gametophyte throughout the development of the sporophyte.
Common name: Mosses

MUSCI
Plants where the female sex organ is the archegonium. There are two phases in developing the gametophyte. The spores grows into a filamentous protonema from which the gametophore develops. It usally grows by the pyridimal apicel cell. The rhizomes are multicelluar with diagonal cross-walls. They are notelaters.
Common name: Mosses

ANDREAEAEOPSIDA
Plants which have a different structure in the protonemata than other mosses (the earliest stage in growth of a moss from the spore, and in most mosses they grow as a network of filaments. In the Andreaeopsida, however, the protonemata are thallose, forming a multicellular flattened layer of embryonic cells). Further more; the capsules of lantern mosses have no stalk, no cap, and no teeth. Instead, the capsule is elevated on an extension of the plant to which it is attached. This gametophytic extension is called a pseudopodium, or "false foot", and it pushes the capsule upwards so that spores may be dispersed further. The capsule itself opens by splitting lengthwise in four or eight slits. The four/eight partitions of the capsule wall between the slits bow outwards, expanding the slits and releasing the spores. A short columella ("little column") in the centre of the capsule keeps the capsule wall from collapsing too far.
Common name: Granite mosses, lantern moss.

BRYOPSIDA
Plants with true stomata and erect, "leafy" gametophytes; sporophytes elongate by apical cell division.
Common name: True mosses

SPAGNOPSIDA
Plants with branches are produced in fascicles or two or more diverging branches and two or more pendant (hanging) branches. Near the apex of the plant, these fascicles are compressed together to form a head, or capitulum, giving the moss a tuft-like appearance. The stems themselves show a greater degree of internal complexity than most other mosses.
Common name: Peat mosses

HEPATOPHYTA
Plants with which lack stomata; stalk of sporophyte elongates along its entire length.
Common name: Liverworts

HEPATICAE HEPATOPHYTA
Plants with which lack stomata; stalk of sporophyte elongates along its entire length.
Common name: Liverworts
HEPATOPSIDA
Plants which lack stomata; stalk of sporophyte elongates along its entire length. The gametophytesare dorsiventrally differentiated, and develop the sex-organs terminally, or from superficial layers of the dorsal surface of the thallus. Sporophytes are all alike; strictly limited in their growth.
Common name: Liverworts
TRACHEOBIONTA
Plants with xylem and phloem: a system of vessels for the transport of water and nutrients.
Common name: Vascular plants

none
Plants with vascularsystem and spores.
Common name:
Fern and allied

EQUISETOPHYTA
Horsetails: Plants reduced megaphylls in whorls. Hollow and narrow stems with much reduced leaves and side branches are lacking..
Scouring rushes: Plants with rough-ridges stems with side branches that are long and narrow.
Common name: Horsetails and scouring rushes

EQUISETOPSIDA
Plants with  leaves that are greatly reduced, in whorls of small, segments fused into nodal sheaths. The stems are green and photosynthetic, also distinctive in being hollow, jointed, and ridged (with (3-) 6-40 ridges).
Common name: Horsetails and scouring rushes

LYCOPODIOHYTA
Plants which possess true vascularized stems, leaves and roots. The position and microanatomy of the vascular tissue is characteristic of these forms. The leaves are  microphylls, i.e. enations or reductions of the stem in which the vascular strand is simple, a trace, a single vein.
Common name: Lycopods, Lower ferns

LYCOPODIOPSIDA
Plants with a significant feature of lycophytes are microphylls, a kind of leaf which has arisen and evolved independently from the leaves of other vascular plants. The microphyll has only a single unbranched strand of vascular tissue, or vein, whereas megaphylls, found in other plants with leaves, have multiple veins, usually branching one or more times within the leaf.
Common name: Fern-allies: Quillwort, Club-moss, Spike-moss

PSILOPHYTA
Plants with have no roots and rearly leaves, but underground, unicellular rhizome, and rect stems dichotomize into the main photosynthetic organ. The sporangia are bornne at the tips of elongated or greatly reduced branches.
Common name: Whisk Fern

PSILOPSIDA
Plants witch are the only living vascular plants to lack both roots and leaves.
Common name: Whisk Fern

PTERIDOPHYTA
Plants which are independant of the gametophyte at mature. They usually have stems, roots and possessing large, frond-like leaves that unfold from a "fiddlehead". Are ither homosporous or heterosporous
Common name: Ferns
FILICOPSIDA
Plants are differentiated into stem, root and leaf (root can be absent). If the vascular cylinder is a siphonostele, there are leaf-gaps. The leaves are macrophyllous, and spirally arranged on the stem. The sporangia are on the margin or abaxial of the leaf.
Common name: True Ferns
SPERMATOPHYTA
Plants which are heterosporous vascular, and produce seeds.
Common name: Seed plants

CONIFEROPHYTA
Plants with naked seeds.
Common name: Conifers, gymnosperms, Cone-bearing, woody seed plants

PINOPSIDA
Plants which mostly are evergreen trees with monopodial branching and pointed leaves, born on short shoots. Flowers in cones, always unisexual, but may be monoecious or dioecious, and never terminal on the main branch.
Common name: Conifers

CYCADOPHYTA
Plants witch are palmlike gymnosperms with large, compound leaves and naked seeds.
Common name: Cycads

CYCADOPSIDA
Plants with large crown of compound leaves and a stout trunk. The multiple fruit is fleshy, and the seeds have a small embrio and an endosperm.
Common name: Cycads
GINKGOPHYTA
Plants witch's seed is surrounded by a fleshy tissue not derived from an ovary wall and hence not a fruit and still a naked seed.
Common name: Ginkgo
GINKGOOPSIDA
Plants with seeds having a shell that consists of a soft and fleshy section (the sarcotesta), and a hard section (the sclerotesta). Ginkgo differs from all other seed plants except Cycadales in having a distinct mode of fertilization by motile or free swimming sperm (wind pollination).
Common name: One living species: Ginkgo, Temple Tree or Maidenhair Tree
GNETOPHYTA
Plants with have no resin-ducts, but vessels in the secondary wood. The is a perianth, and they have naked seeds.
Common name: Vessel-bearing gymnosperms. Mormon tea,other gnetophytes
WELWITSCHIOPSIDA
Plants with woody structure, decussantephyllotaxis, ephedroid pollen, extendedmicropylartube from the inner integument of the ovule and two cotyledons.
Common name: One living species: Welwitschia, Tree tumbo
EPHEDROPSIDA
Plants with long slender branches which bear tiny scale-like leaves at their nodes.
Common name: Joint Fir, Mormon Tea
GNETOPSIDA
Plants having small unisexual flowers and fleshy or winged fruit.
Common name: Gnetias
MAGNOLIOPHYTA
Plants with flowers.
Common name: Flowers
LILIOPSIDA
Plants with one seed leaf.
Common name: Monocotyledons: orchids, lilies, irises, palms, grass i.e..
MAGNOLIOPSIDA
Plants with two seed leaves.
Common name: Dicotyledons: Trees, shrubs, vines, flowers i.e.