Lycopodiopsida
Class of vascular plants / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Club moss?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Lycopodiopsida is a class of vascular plants also known as lycopods or lycophytes. Members of the class are also called clubmosses, firmosses, spikemosses and quillworts. They have dichotomously branching stems bearing simple leaves called microphylls and reproduce by means of spores borne in sporangia on the sides of the stems at the bases of the leaves. Although living species are small, during the Carboniferous, extinct tree-like forms (Lepidodendrales) formed huge forests that dominated the landscape and contributed to coal deposits.
Lycopodiopsida | |
---|---|
Palhinhaea cernua with close-up of branch | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Lycophytes |
Class: | Lycopodiopsida Bartl. |
Orders | |
| |
Synonyms | |
See Table 1. |
The nomenclature and classification of plants with microphylls varies substantially among authors. A consensus classification for extant (living) species was produced in 2016 by the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group (PPG I), which places them all in the class Lycopodiopsida, which includes the classes Isoetopsida and Selaginellopsida used in other systems. (See Table 2.) Alternative classification systems have used ranks from division (phylum) to subclass. In the PPG I system, the class is divided into three orders, Lycopodiales, Isoetales and Selaginellales.