GYMNOSPERMS

This article appears in Volume V12, Page 754 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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GYMNOSPERMS , in Botany. The Gymnosperms, with the Angiosperms, constitute the existing groups of seed-bearing plants or Phanerogams: the importance of the seed as a distinguishing feature in the plant kingdom may be emphasized by the use of the designation Spermophyta for these two groups, in contrast to the Pteridophyta and Bryophyta in which true seeds are unknown.

Recent

RECENT

discoveries have, however, established the fact that there existed in the Palaeozoic era fern-like plants which produced true seeds of a highly specialized type; this group, for which Oliver and Scott proposed the term Pteridospermae in 1go4, must also be included in the Spermophyta. Another instance of the production of seeds in an extinct plant which further reduces the importance of this character as a distinguishing feature is afforded by the Palaeozoic genus Lepidocarpon described by Scott in 19o1; this lycopodiaceous type possessed an integumented megaspore, to which the designation seed may be legitimately applied (see PALAEOBOTANY: Palaeozoic).
As the name Gymnosperm (Gr. yvv6s, naked, Q7rEpa, seed) implies, one characteristic of this group is the absence of an ovary or closed chamber containing the ovules. It was the English botanist Robert Brown who first recognized this important distinguishing feature in conifers and cycads in 1825; he established the gymnosperrny of these seed-bearing classes as distinct from the angiospermy of the monocotyledons and dicotyledons. As Sachs says in his history of botany, " no more important discovery was ever made in the domain of comparative morphology and systematic botany." As Coulter and Chamberlain express it, " the habitats of the Gymnosperms to-day indicate that they either are not at home in the more genial conditions affected by Angiosperms, or have not been able to maintain themselves in competition with this group of plants."
These naked-seeded plants are of

special

SPECIAL

interest

INTEREST

on account of their great antiquity, which far exceeds that of the Angiosperms, and as comprising different types which carry us back to the Palaeozoic era and to the forests of the coal period. The best known and by far the largest division of the Gymnosperms is that of the

cone

CONE (Gr. Kwvos)

-bearing trees (pines, firs, cedars, larches, &c.), which play a prominent part in the vegetation of the present day, especially in the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere; certain members of this class are of considerable antiquity, but the conifers as a whole are still vigorous and show but little sign of decadence. The division known as the Cycadophyta is represented by a few living genera of limited geographical range and by a large number of extinct types which in the Mesozoic era (see PALAEOBOTANY: Mesozoic) played a conspicuous part in the vegetation of the world. Among existing Cycadophyta we find surviving types which, in their present isolation, their close resemblance to fossil forms, and in certain morphological features, constitute links with the past that not only connect the present with former periods in the earth's history, but serve as sign-posts pointing the way back along one of the many lines which evolution has followed.
It is needless to discuss at length the origin of the Gymnosperms. The two views which find most favour in regard to the Coniferales and Cycadophyta are: (I) that both have been derived from remote filicinean ancestors; (2) that the cycads are the descendants of a fern-like stock, while conifers have been. evolved from lycopodiaceous ancestors. The line of descent of

recent

RECENT

cycads is comparatively clear in so far as they have undoubted affinity with Palaeozoic plants which combined cycadean and filicinean features; but

opinion

OPINION (Lat. opinio, from opinari, to think)

is much more divided as to the nature of the phylum from which the conifers are derived. The Cordaitales (see PALAEOBOTANY: Palaeozoic) are represented by extinct forms only, which occupied a prominentposition in the Palaeozoic period; these plants exhibit certain features in common with the living Araucarias, and others which invite a comparison with the maidenhair tree (Ginkgo biloba), the solitary survivor of another class of Gymnosperms, the Ginkgoales (see PALAEOBOTANY: Mesozoic). The Gnetales are a class apart, including three living genera, of which we know next to nothing as regards their past history or line of descent. Although there are several morphological features in the three genera of Gnetales which might seem to bring them into line with the Angiosperms, it is usual to regard these resemblances as parallel developments along distinct lines rather than to interpret them as evidence of direct relationship.
Gymnospermae.Trees or shrubs; leaves vary considerably in size and form.

Flowers

FLOWERS, ARTIFICIAL

unisexual, except in a few cases (Gnetales) without a perianth. Monoecious or dioecious. Ovules naked, rarely without carpellary leaves, usually borne on carpophylls, which assume various forms. The single megaspore enclosed in the nucellus is filled with

tissue

TISSUE (Fr. tissu, tissue, participle of tisser, Lat. texere, to weave)

(prothallus) before fertilization, and contains two or more archegonia, consisting usually of a large egg-cell and a small neck, rarely of an egg-cell only and no neck (Gnetum and Welwitschia). Microspore spherical or oval, with or without a bladder-like extension of the exine, containing a prothallus of two or more cells, one of which produces two non-motile or motile male cells. Cotyledons two or several. Secondary xylem and phloem produced by a single cambium, or by successive cambial zones; no true vessels (except in the Gnetales) in the

wood

, and no companion-cells in the phloem.
I. Pteridospermae (see PALAEOBOTANY, PALAEOZOIC).
II. Cycadophyta.
A. Cycadales (recent and extinct).
B. Bennettitales (see PALAEOBOTANY: Mesozoic).
IV. Ginkgoales (recent and extinct).
V. Coniferales.
A. Taxaceae.
B. Pinaceae.
There is no doubt that the result of recent research and of

work

WORK

now in progress will be to modify considerably the grouping of the conifers. The family Araucarieae, represented by Araucaria and Agathis, should perhaps be separated as a

special

SPECIAL

class and a re-arrangement of other genera more in accord with a natural system of classification will soon be possible; but for the present its twofold subdivision may be retained.
VI. Gnetales.
A. Ephedroideae.
B. Gnetoideae.
C. Welwitschioideae (Tumboideae).

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